STARKVILLE, Miss. -- North Carolina coach Roy Williams said he was playing for the present in the NIT. But in the first half of the fourth-seeded Tar Heels' 76-74 victory over top-seeded Mississippi State on Saturday, his team gave him some hope for the future, too.
With UNC trailing 16-4 - and all of the starters, except for Marcus Ginyard, benched because of their lackadaisical start - UNC's freshmen led the Tar Heels on a 26-7 run to take a 30-23 lead, and put them squarely back into the game.
"We knew we needed to pick it up," said freshman Dexter Strickland, who finished with eight points. "The starting five wasn't doing as well as we should be, we knew we had to bring it up. We were down by a lot ... and me, Travis [Wear] and [Tyler] Zeller went in there, played as a team, and got everything going."
Indeed, Strickland and fellow freshman Leslie McDonald (who finished with seven points) aggressively drove to the basket for buckets. Wear (six points) pounded the ball from inside, and when starter John Henson (12 points) returned, he added a versatile drive-and-dunk, a long jumper and an alley oop. In all, the rookies accounted for 21 points in the run; Zeller, a sophomore, accounted for the other five.
Zeller possibly concussed: Zeller, a reserve forward, left the court holding the left side of his face with 12:09 left, after he was fouled by the Bulldogs' Barry Stewart. The 7-footer, who got five stitches above his left eye, did not return to the game or the bench, and a team spokesman said he has a possible concussion.
"It looked awful," Williams said of Zeller's injury. "... Five stitches and a concussion, so I have no idea [of his prognosis]. And he's been doing some good things, too. It's a shame for him - seven points and seven rebounds in 13 minutes."
