North Carolina is still looking for the kind of play thought possible when it was named the preseason No. 1 team in college basketball, and the search will go on today.
Evansville will visit Chapel Hill for a 7 p.m. game at the Smith Center. North Carolina will begin a nine-game homestand that will carry into January and its first two ACC games of the season.
More important, today's game will give the Tar Heels an opportunity to wipe away some of the bitter disappointment of Saturday's 73-72 loss at Kentucky that wasn't settled until the final seconds.
"I'm satisfied with the effort; I'm not satisfied with our play," Williams said after the loss, UNC's second in three games. "I thought our kids tried. They wanted it badly.
"We do have to play a heck of a lot better, and do simple, little things. We've got to be more consistent."
UNC is 6-2. Evansville is 3-3 and split decisions against Butler and Indiana in its first two games of the season. Evansville defeated Butler 80-77 in overtime and lost to Indiana 94-73.
The game will give Williams time to work again on getting more production from Tyler Zeller, a senior center, and Kendall Marshall, a sophomore point guard. Williams would like more baskets from both players, Zeller especially.
Zeller took only nine shots at Kentucky, hitting four. He added six free throws to finish with 14 points, his most points in five games.
Marshall doesn't need to shoot as much as Zeller, but does need to shoot more often, Williams said. He took six shots at Kentucky and made three; two of his baskets were 3-pointers.
Marshall said that while UNC didn't expect to have two losses at this point of the season, ample time remains to fix the problems and even regain the No. 1 ranking nationally.
"We didn't claim that we were going to be perfect," Marshall said. "We knew we had things to work on at the beginning of the season. That doesn't excuse the (Kentucky) loss.
"We've got to learn from these losses. It's the point of playing a tough schedule and playing against teams that are going to make you better. It's all learning."
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