North Carolina Tar Heels: Is Marcus Paige Back?
The North Carolina Tar Heels got a solid game from guard Marcus Paige against Boston College. Does this mean the slump is over?
Saturday’s North Carolina Tar Heels basketball game against the Boston College Eagles was not really a display of basketball that you would want to see. The Eagles showed little offense, little speed, and not enough height. So they were not in a good place against a North Carolina team that did not even start Kennedy Meeks in the ball game.
After the game, the BC side referenced their defensive effort. This was their defensive effort in a game decided by twenty-seven points and where that defense gave up 89 (89-62). Big Ten basketball this wasn’t and the Eagles have been struggling all year in the conference schedule.
Yet this was not the biggest story line of the game. For many this looked like a normal Tar Heel performance of the last month. Brice Johnson got his double-double and Joel Berry scored in double figures and things sort of came together from there. However there was a much bigger thing going on in this game.
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Marcus Paige made shots in this game. He didn’t even have to take a lot of them to do it either. His foul shooting was admittedly off, but Paige had been going through a very noticeable slump with single digit point totals under five. In this game he shot just under 50% from the field (4/9). He also shot adequately from the three point line (3/8). These are good signs of a team that will need Paige’s production in the future.
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The Tar Heels now enter the meat of their conference schedule. A three game swing will take the Tar Heels to Lousiville tonight, Notre Dame, and then a rematch with these same Boston College Eagles.
Then from Valentine’s Day on, the Heels will have a bunch of loaded games. There will be Pitt, Virginia, two games with Duke, and rematches with Syracuse and NC State. In the middle of that stretch lurks ranked Miami.
So hopefully Paige will continue his way back tonight against the Cardinals.