The No. 12 North Carolina men’s basketball team dominated East Carolina 108-64 Sunday afternoon at the Dean E. Smith Center.

With the win, UNC improves to 6-2 and ECU drops to 4-5.

Brice Johnson and J.P. Tokoto led the Tar Heels with each scoring 19 points. Johnson led the team in rebounding and set a career high of 17 rebounds. Johnson’s rebounding record surpassed any Tar Heel from last season and this current season.

“We feel a heck of a lot better than we did Wednesday night,” UNC head coach Roy Williams says. “I think we invested a heck of a lot more these last couple of days. Mentally, we were more into the game.”

*Listen to Roy Williams’ postgame remarks*

UNC came off a tough loss against Iowa Wednesday night with a season-low 27.9 percent from the floor, the lowest field goal percentage in a game since 2011. In an amazing turn of events, Carolina had a season-high shooting percentage against ECU, going 60 percent from the floor. Freshman Joel Berry shot 100 percent going 4-4.

“Yesterday we got after it probably as hard as anybody on this team has ever had to practice the day before a game,” Coach Williams says. “But you can’t do the things rebounding-wise and you can’t do the things one-on-one and selfishly like we did Wednesday night to be a good basketball team.”

UNC vs ECU 045Coach Williams says it was the little details such as fewer turnovers that led to a well-played game against ECU. UNC only had one turnover in the first half.

North Carolina led 48-29 at halftime on the strength of a 23-5 run beginning midway through the first half. Johnson rounded out the first half scoring 8 out of North Carolina’s final 10 points, 6 of which came after his own offensive rebounds.

Kennedy Meeks added 12 points and 11 rebounds, and Nate Britt finished with 10 points.

“We still have to do a better job rebounding and a better job boxing out, but we shared the ball. Twenty-seven assists for us shooting 60 percent for the game and, again, we were into it mentally and we got to have that same kind of attitude every night,” Coach Williams says.

UNC will continue its nonconference slate Saturday away from home against Kentucky at 12pm.

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