North Carolina defeated Michigan State, 89-82, tonight in Chapel Hill. UNC shot the lights out early. MSU fought back, but too little too late. Hope to see UNC in the tourney. Michigan State shot a measly 2-20 (10%) of their 3-pointers for the game; UNC hit on 5-10 (50%) in 10 less possessions, with a 9-pt advantage in that category. UNC eventually won by seven.

Michigan State struggled taking advantage of UNC mistakes and opportunities; time and again, UNC would miss shots or turn the ball over, and Michigan State just didn't convert them. More often than not, MSU settled for perimeter jump shots instead of driving and creating an inside offense -- and, more often than not, MSU missed.

Not Carolina - they shot the lights out early. By half, MSU was down by 16 (50-34), and the Spartans unleashed a furious comeback, but they missed too many chances in the second half. UNC provided MSU with opportunities: Morgan's lob on a wide open alley-oop that went out of bounds; Summers' and Allen's missed 3 pointers time and again, especially in the last 3 minutes; missed Free Throws by Morgan; a missed layup by Green; Morgan & Lucas running into each other after forcing a turnover late, etc.

Korie Lucious was 3-12 FGs and 0-6 threes; Chris Allen was 2-9 FGs and 0-6 threes; and Kalin Lucas was 6-17 FGs and 0-3 threes. Michigan State will not win with that backcourt production from those three (11-38 FGs, 0-15 threes)... not to mention the lack of effectiveness defensively on UNC guards, which shot 5-10 threes, especially early. But, the ES suspects that will be the worst combined effort out of the three this year. Expect it to improve as the season progresses - it can only go up, and Tom Izzo has the pedigree to get them to improve.

Quotes from Tom Izzo after the game with Gus Ganakas:"We shot the ball so miserably... Korie, Chris, and Durrell [couldn't find their shot]. Roe played like a man, we have to give him the ball more... A couple of 5-point swings and it changed the whole game... [UNC's] Drew did a great job. Korie struggled in that game early to guard; they blew by us a few times. Then, they got a few threes early, and they haven't beeen getting that this year... We didn't deserve to win because we didn't do enough early. We wanted to blitz more during the game and at the end and poor Kalin was so tired, we just couldn't do it... I was disappointed. I swear they were in the lane 3-4-5 seconds, but we didn't do a good enough job getting around them. They hurt us inside, no question. [UNC's] Davis really hurt us. They are a very good team and played very well at home. "