North Carolina wraps up the nonconference portion of its schedule on Monday night when the No. 12 Tar Heels welcome East Carolina to Chapel Hill.
Winners of five straight, the Tar Heels (11-1) come into the game on short rest. They let an 11-point second-half lead evaporate Saturday before Henri Veesaar’s dunk with 7.2 seconds left gave North Carolina a 71-70 victory over Ohio State in Atlanta.
Freshman Caleb Wilson scored 20 points for the fourth straight game and posted his eighth double-double by finishing with a season-high 15 rebounds. Veesaar had his sixth double-double, netting 17 points and 10 boards to go along with a team-high five assists. Seth Trimble, who missed the Tar Heels’ previous nine games after breaking his left forearm, also contributed 17 points in the victory.
Getting the guard back makes the Tar Heels more versatile, coach Hubert Davis said after the win, and Trimble’s contributions extend to the other end of the court. Davis put his guard on Ohio State’s Bruce Thornton, and Trimble held the Buckeyes’ leading scorer — who entered the contest hitting 60.2% from the field — to just 7-for-16 shooting (43.8%).
“So having him in the lineup is huge,” Davis said. “Obviously, he’s gifted. I felt like in transition, it’s the first time that we’ve gotten pitch-ahead dunks and layups in a while. So we’ve got to get back to that, because a huge part of our offense is being able to sprint.”
The Tar Heels have been one of the country’s top defensive teams this season. Opponents are hitting just 37.2% from the floor. That could be especially troublesome for the Pirates (5-7), who are hitting just 40.7% from the field.
According to KenPom.com, Monday’s game will pit the nation’s 23rd-most efficient defense — the Tar Heels allow only 97.2 points per 100 possessions — against an East Carolina offense that manages just 99.2 points per 100 possessions, which ranks 329th out of 365 teams.
The Pirates enter Chapel Hill on a two-game winning streak and coming off their best performance of the season. Jordan Riley scored 24 points, and Giovanni Emejuru added 21 in a 74-53 win over Presbyterian on Wednesday. East Carolina shot a season-best 54.5%, the first time the Pirates hit more than half of their shots.
Riley spurs the Pirates offense and is one of the top players in the American Athletic Conference. He leads the conference in scoring (21.7 points per game) and in average playing time (35.9 minutes per game). The 6-foot-4 senior guard has scored 25 or more in each of his last four games.
Monday’s game marks just the fifth time the two in-state schools have played. The Tar Heels have won all four previous encounters, with the most recent being a 108-64 rout on Dec. 7, 2014.
It will also be the first time Pirates coach Michael Schwartz has led a team into the Dean Smith Center.
“It’ll be a dynamic, electric atmosphere, and it’ll be even more than the atmosphere, it’s going to be the team we’re playing,” Schwartz said after Wednesday’s win. “This is a national championship caliber team.”
