Rest easy, Roy, North Carolina will be just fine

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina -- At last, Roy Williams can sleep.

That's what an 86-71 early-season victory can do for a coach and his team, especially when it comes over a fellow brand-name program, Michigan, at home in front of an audience still a little jittery after their favorite team's previous performance.

"There is plenty to work on, for sure," the North Carolinacoach said. "But that right there was a nice bounce back from what we did the last time out."

In the days leading up to Wednesday night's ACC-Big Ten tilt with Michigan, Williams hadn't caught many Zs -- as in none. OK, he thinks he might have snuck in a 90-minute nap Monday morning. He suffered a case of insomnia that was handed to him by the Wolverines' hated neighbors to the north.

On Sunday, fourth-ranked Michigan Statestomped then-No. 9 UNC 63-45 in in Portland. The team's red-eye flight home that night was a quite literal one for Williams, who stayed awake bemoaning a performance that set school records in both field goal and 3-point percentage -- and not the good kind of records. Even more than the shooting issues, he was bugged by his youthful team's inability to rebound, which, in his words, "creates an inability to do anything else." He considered watching the game film during the flight but elected not to because he said he was afraid it would give him bad dreams.

If Michigan State was a nightmare, Michigan was a dream.

"We watched the film of the Michigan State game for 45 minutes [on Tuesday], and it was about as ugly as we all thought it was going to be," Williams said. "We all agreed we're not going to watch it again. And we're going to try to never start a game like that again."

Barely five minutes into Wednesday night's contest, North Carolina had already stroked four 3-pointers, as opposed to its lone long-range bucket in the entire Michigan State contest. The Heels scored 51 points on 33 possessions to lead by 14 at halftime and extended that lead to 29 early in the second half.

On Sunday night in Portland, only one Tar Heel scored in double-digits. On Wednesday night, three players had scored 10 or more by the break. The final box score was led by Luke Maye's 27 points, marking his third outing with 25 or more points in the season's first seven games. Against Michigan State, he scored only eight, shooting 3-of-13 from the field. In all, 10 players scored Wednesday, including a couple of late-game, walk-on inserts who brought those remaining in the Dean Dome student section to their feet.

Field goal percentage? The Tar Heels shot 55 percent. Three-pointers? They were 7-of-15. As for Roy's rebounding concerns, the Heels dominated the glass from the first minute and never let up, out-rebounding Michigan 37-31, with 27 of those coming defensively.

"We still aren't protecting the rim, though," Williams said, sifting through the team's six blocks. He said Michigan's 28-of-66 (42 percent) performance from the field was due more to pure misses than to defensive pressure.

"The big guys have a lot of work to do," he said of his big men. Of the team's 10 freshmen and sophomores, five are listed as forwards. "They've got to buy into what we want to do on defense."

For one, Michigan's John Beilein agreed with his colleague's assessment. "I think North Carolina might be that good, but I know we aren't that bad... they just came in from Portland, and we just came in from Hawaii. But we're the team that looked like it was in a haze."

Up next for Carolina is a Friday night trip down I-85 to Davidson (8 p.m. ET on ESPN2 and ESPN App). The ACC conference calendar kicks off one month from now. Roy Williams hopes the team that hosts Wake Forest on Dec. 30 is the one that played Michigan, not the one that didn't play much at all against Michigan State.

As for Michigan, the team that played the wounded role of North Carolina: Sunday Night in Portland Edition, its coach was planning to lose sleep on the flight back to Ann Arbor -- but not out of fear. He was anxious to see what he could learn before Michigan hosts Indiana on Saturday afternoon.

"Tonight was a great teaching experience," Beilein added before bolting for the bus, noting that the Dean Dome is always a Final Four kind of atmosphere. "This is like the Montessori experience you want for your kids. They can feel it, they can touch it, they can learn from it. We'll learn from it."