North Carolina will try to continue its perfect start under new head coach Michael Malone on Tuesday night when Wyoming pays a visit to Chapel Hill, N.C.
After pulling away late to an 80-72 victory over Western Carolina in Malone’s collegiate coaching debut, the Tar Heels (2-0) posted a far more comfortable 109-70 home win over Wofford on Friday night.
Terrence Brown led the Heels with 21 points versus the Terriers as Malone was afforded the luxury of leaning heavily on his bench, with no player logging more than 22 minutes.
Freshman Maximo Adams capitalized by collecting 11 points and 11 rebounds.
Malone said afterward that fans should expect to see continued progress as a squad that flipped over two-thirds of its roster from last year gets to know each other.
“We have a starting five that’s never played one minute together prior to the season,” Malone said. “We have 11 new players, and so I think each day that goes by, each battle, each contest that we go through, kind of brings us together even more. And you have that family, you have that togetherness, and that cohesion that improves.”
Wyoming (2-0) might be the stiffest test yet for the Tar Heels, having cruised to victory in their first two games after being ranked fifth out of 10 teams in the Mountain West preseason poll.
The Cowboys opened a 28-point lead before halftime en route to a 93-62 home win over Idaho State on Friday night, one that followed an even more comfortable 95-48 win over Regis.
Sophomore Nasir Meyer scored 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds in 25 minutes to lead all Wyoming performers.
If anything, the Cowboys finished the night frustrated that their defensive intensity eased after allowing only 20 first-half points.
“I thought in the first half we did a great job defensively. We had seven turkeys, which is three stops in a row. That’s unheard of,” Meyer said. “But we’ve got to carry that over in the second half.”