At North Carolina, It's Evolve and Advance

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – As hard as points were to come by for North Carolina Saturday, a Roy Williams compliment might as well have been a four-point play.

In the moments after the Tar Heels' 48-46 low-octane win over Boston College, the coach described his team's offensive execution with the sort of half-hearted enthusiasm usually reserved for your mother-in-law's cooking.

"We won," Williams said. "Bottom line."

As far as artistic impression goes, the Tar Heels' 10th ACC win over the year was pretty like a Picasso, which is to say only if you squinted really hard and used your imagination.

The list of dubious achievements was as lengthy as it was difficult to watch.

It was the third straight game the Tar Heels shot under 40 percent. It was North Carolina's lowest scoring game under Roy Williams. It was the Heels' lowest scoring effort since a 60-48 loss in the program nadir that was the 2002 season, and the lowest in the 361-game history of Dean E. Smith center that dates back to the era of short shorts and senior stars.

Yet of all those things, of the misses that clanged around the Dean Dome like the round of "Tar" "Heels" chants, of the turnovers, of the moments that made Roy Williams shake his head when Job himself would've cracked a clipboard over his knee, it was, above all, a win.

"The only positive I think we can get out of it is that we found a way to win," freshman point guard Kendall Marshall.

More accurately, North Carolina found a burst to win.

For six minutes near the start of the second half, the Tar Heels reeled off a 14-1 run to turn a 24-23 edge into a 39-24 advantage and looked every bit like the bandsaw in shorts that hung 106 points on Boston College Feb. 1. Junior Tyler Zeller took control in the paint scoring nine of the 14 points, Marshall zipped a pair of long fly-route passes to get the Tar Heels transition game going against a defense that sold out offensive rebounding just to put chocks under UNC's wheels. John Henson stretched and twisted and kept Boston College out of the lane.

And the offense hummed.

"For five or six possessions in the second half," Roy Williams said, "we were really good."

Then ... they were young.

Over the final 7:40, Boston College chipped away at a 13-point North Carolina advantage. The Heels scored just three points and committed turnover after turnover, including one cross-court pass from Zeller that wound up in the area of the North Carolina bench.

"Hell, I can shoot, but I'd prefer someone else shoot when it counts" Williams quipped, a rare joke in an otherwise dour press conference, and, given his team's inability to hit from deep, perhaps a coaching error.

During the Tar Heels' late slump, even Williams somehow lost count of the number of turnovers.

Coaches count turnovers the way Scrooge counted pennies.

"You can't do those kind of things," Williams said flatly.

Marshall, the freshman whose steady play in the starting lineup has bolstered, committed two during Boston College's 14-3 finish, part of a season-high five giveaways.

"He was a freshman out there today," Williams said. "You can't have those kind of turnovers."

He wasn't alone for a team that at times seems young enough to need a chaperon to Toy Story 3.

Then again, that's what Roy Williams has told us all year long.

From the first practice of the season, the coach has repeated his team is a work in progress until he's Tar Heel blue in the face.

Conveniently for the coach, his team was kind enough to drive the point home.

"Right now, we have to be mature," said Harrison Barnes, the Tar Heels' equally hyped and heady freshman. "It's the end of the season, we can't just rely on 'Oh, We'll get better later.' We need to act that way now and act like we're a great team."

Change starts on the perimeter. The Tar Heels hit just 2-of-11 against a Boston College defense designed to give up 3-point shots and are now shooting 27.1 percent from 3-point range during ACC play.

Starting guard Dexter Strickland took just one field goal. He missed.

Reserves Leslie McDonald and Reggie Bullock hit just 2-of-9. Defenses mob Zeller and Henson on the interior like they're Justin Bieber in a middle school lunch room.

"We've just got to wait on our shooters," Zeller said. "They're great shooters. They've just got to knock down shots.

"Hopefully everything will fall together in next few weeks."

But if North Carolina's difficult 2010 campaign taught them anything, it's that a win is a win.

Survive. Evolve. Advance.

Pass the Maalox.

Of course, there were high points. The team's defense spit out a list of Boston College failures just like the Tar Heels, including the fewest points scored in the ACC and a 26.9 percent shooting percentage of the game. Zeller hit 7-of-13 from the floor, when the Tar Heel guards could get him the ball and in spite of several double teams. The defensive interior rotation of Barnes, Zeller and Henson made Boston College struggle with shots, and Henson's erector-set wingspan caused Boston College's would-be game-winner to misfire.

But the Tar Heels are running as short on time as Williams was on compliments,.

"I don't think we've even tapped in to how good we can be," Henson said. "I keep saying once the offense and the defense same level are at the same level, we can be a great team. Right now, it's either one of the other every game. Right now have to figure out how to make it happen."

At North Carolina, evolution needs to make a leap.