UNC Rolls Over Florida, 75-64, In Battle 4 Atlantis

The Tar Heel basketball team jumped out to a 12-0 lead on Friday and never looked back, rolling over the No. 16 Florida Gators 75-64 in the final game of the Battle 4 Atlantis.

It was UNC’s second win in as many days over a ranked opponent: they also beat UCLA on Thursday after an opening-game loss to Butler.

“We feel better than we did after the first night,” said head coach Roy Williams after the game.

Carolina hounded Florida on defense from the beginning; the Gators didn’t score until almost seven minutes had gone by. Florida’s outside shooting came up short as well: the Gators shot only 6-27 from 3-point range. (The Heels, by contrast, shot 6-12 from beyond the arc.)

Photo by Nick Vitali.

By halftime, UNC led 39-23. Florida got as close as 7 in the second half, but never really threatened. The Tar Heels never trailed during the game.

It was a team effort all the way for UNC. Kennedy Meeks led the way with another double-double, 18 points and 13 rebounds (tying his career high for rebounds). Justin Jackson scored the first five points of the game and ended with 12. JP Tokoto and Brice Johnson each added 10, and Marcus Paige chipped in 16.

Brice Johnson goes high for a slam against Florida. Photo by Nick Vitali.

But UNC struggled against Florida’s full-court press, and the Tar Heels shot only 32 percent in the second half after shooting 58 percent in the first half – points that Williams says give the team something to work on.

Tonight Billy’s press really bothered us,” he said, referring to Florida head coach Billy Donovan. “We turned it over 19 times, and that’s too many to say the least.”

Still, UNC came away with a double-digit win against a ranked opponent. Both Williams and his players gave part of the credit for that to the team’s depth – which allowed the players to stay fresh, even while playing three games in three days.

“Yesterday (against UCLA) I think we (only) had two guys play over 22 minutes,” Williams said. “The depth helped us win the game last night, and I think it helped us get off to a better start tonight.”

JP Tokoto agreed. “In the UCLA game, the guys were really fired up from the Butler loss…(and) for this game it was the same thing as yesterday,” he said. “We knew we had to come out with energy – (and) everyone played three games, so we knew we couldn’t use that as an excuse. Our depth really helped us.”

Marcus Paige drives against Florida in the Battle 4 Atlantis. Photo by Nick Vitali.

With the win, UNC moves to 5-1 on the season (2-1 this week in the Bahamas) and takes home fifth place in the Battle 4 Atlantis – a high-level tournament that included four ranked teams plus at least three high-quality unranked teams in Butler, Georgetown and Oklahoma.

“We were exposed to many different things,” Williams said – citing Butler’s physical play, UCLA’s speed, and Florida’s screen on the ball. “Used to be, a tournament would be four good teams and four not-so-good teams. But this is a big time tournament…great tournament, great field, and I do believe it really helped us.”

Wisconsin took home the 2014 Battle 4 Atlantis title by beating Oklahoma in the championship game on Friday.

UNC has very little time to relax: they host Iowa on Wednesday back in Chapel Hill, in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.