North Carolina finds ways to adapt during life without Marcus Paige
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Marcus Paige fidgeted slightly, remembering the discomfort of the moment, the suffocation of his own suit.
He, along with his Tar Heels teammates, had arrived at the arena before their game at the Naval Academy. They all begun to change into warm-ups; he remained in his rather stylish suit.
“It was hard,” Paige said in the locker room after UNC’s 91-67 win against Temple. “Just leading up to the actual game, not being in the moment with the team. I’m kind of distant. I just don’t feel like I’m a part of it. I tried to stay engaged and talk to guys and be yelling from the bench — just to feel like I was doing my part — but I would trade my spot for any of the players’ spots any time.”
Paige’s spot, at least for the next couple of weeks, is at the end of the bench. He broke a bone in his right, non-shooting hand, and it’s keeping the senior point guard on the nation’s top-ranked team sidelined for the start of the season.
And he hates it.
“No control,” he said, shaking his head. “This feeling, knowing you can’t impact or affect the game. You’ve just got to trust your teammates — which, actually, is a good thing. I do trust them.”
But he’s used to affecting the game every single possession. So this is hard. Really hard. For him and his teammates.
“It’s kind of awkward,” junior guard Nate Britt said. “ I’m so used to looking for him. … When I’m pushing the ball down the court, he’s the first guy I look for.”
Britt and sophomore Joel Berry II took over ball-handling responsibilities in Paige’s absence, with Berry carrying much of the load in his first career start.
The two combined to go 5-for-6 from three-point range, with each scoring in double figures, and both impressed Paige with the way they set the tone inside. They fed forwards Brice Johnson, who got going in the second half, and Kennedy Meeks, who had a career-high 25 points, all night long, dominating points in the paint, 42-14.
“Britt and Berry did a very good job for them; their threes were daggers for us … and their post-feeding and transition were good,” Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. “They’re a very good basketball team.”
His counterpart, North Carolina coach Roy Williams, was considerably less effusive with his praise of his Paige-less team. In fact, he did his best to temper expectations by criticizing his players.
On Meeks: “I keep challenging him. I’m not going to anoint him because he had 25 points, 11 rebounds and they had one true post player playing most of the game.”
On Isaiah Hicks: “I didn’t think he played worth a darn.”
On Johnson: “(Early on,) if you had a heartbeat, you were playing with more energy than Brice was playing with.”
Williams also expressed great disappointment in Britt’s role in a late-game kerfuffle. Johnson slammed down a put-back dunk and hung on the rim before wrapping his leg around Temple guard Shawn Alston Jr. Alston retaliated by throwing Johnson to the ground. Britt doesn’t remember what happened — it’s all still a blur, a heated moment — but he left the bench to rush toward Johnson. He was subsequently ejected for the game’s final seconds.
For his lapse, the entire UNC basketball team had to wear suits home. Normally after wins, players get to wear sweats while traveling. Not Friday night, and not even after Britt apologized to his teammates and coaches.
But that transgression will be forgiven, the frustration will pass. The Tar Heels will focus on Britt’s offensive contributions, and the way he helped plug — at least for one night — the gaping hole left by Paige.
Paige won’t be out much longer, though each game spent as a spectator will prove difficult anew. Before Friday, he’d missed only one game in his UNC career. He confided that that game — against UAB his freshman year, missed because of a shoulder injury — didn’t feel like Friday’s. He’d dressed in warm-ups and gotten ready with his teammates before the scratch.
He’ll get used to the suits. His teammates will get used to not looking for him on breakaways. The Tar Heels will develop a depth in their backcourt that they hope will serve them well later this season, and Paige hopes he’ll learn from his new vantage point on the bench this month.
“When he gets back, he’ll make it even better,” Berry said.
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