By R.L. Bynum

CHAPEL HILL — This deep, talented Carolina team will be fun to watch.

Against an overmatched Division II team, the No. 9 Tar Heels put on a show for the fans and a clinic in transition basketball, defensive pressure and the pick-and-roll game.

After Johnson C. Smith stayed with UNC for 11 minutes, the Heels dropped the hammer and rolled to a 127–63 exhibition victory Sunday at the Smith Center, going from 21 turnovers in the win at Memphis to only seven.

“The most enjoyable thing for me is to see them having fun,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “It’s really easy to have smiles on your face for your own individual success, but it’s even better to have a smile and celebrate other people’s success. And I felt like our team did that today.”

Freshman Ian Jackson (game-high 21 points) and junior Seth Trimble (15 points, three rebounds, two assists, two steals) — who again showed he’ll be a star this season — each impressively carried on the Air Jordan tradition, taking flight on dunks on a day with seven Tar Heels scoring double-figure points.

RJ Davis (15 points, three assists) was back with another solid game, allaying worries after he suffered a back injury eight days earlier. Elliot Cadeau (12 points, eight assists) again showed off his elite playmaking skills.

“As a head coach, you feel a lot better when you have RJ out there on the floor,” Coach Davis said. “I’m still trying to find a way to bring them back next year, and I don’t know if it’s going to work, but I’m going to try. It was nice having them out there and having a full roster.”

Many newcomers were impressive, but Jackson seized the spotlight in the second half. He scored 17 of his after halftime. In a game-high 25 minutes and 44 seconds, Jackson drew a game-high eight fouls, creating a lot of contact inside that led him to go 8 of 10 from the free-throw line.

“I think he has the ability to put major pressure on the rim, whether it’s in transition or one-on-one situations,” Coach Davis said of Jackson. “So, him getting to the free throw line 10 times, that’s exactly the way that I want him to play.”

The 6–4 freshman from the Bronx literally jumped out of one shoe as he was skying to hurdle over Johnson C. Smith’s Jason Anderson and just missed hammering in what would have been a highlight-reel dunk. Not to fear, Jackson — who scored one of seven UNC 3-pointers — delivered less than a minute later with a steal and a crowd-pleasing windmill dunk.

“When I caught the ball. I saw this one guy down there, but he was a little bit smaller,” Jackson said, lamenting a couple of missed layup attempts, talking about the miss. “I told my teammates before the game I’m going to get a windmill today if I get a fast break.”

— Pittsboro freshman wing Drake Powell showed he’d be a force defensively, including a steal and a dunk in the first half and a two-handed block in the final minute, finishing with eight points, nine rebounds, four assists and two blocks.

— Belmont transfer Cade Tyson, who started along with Cadeau, Davis, Trimble and Jalen Washington, found his perimeter range with a pair of 3-pointers and had 10 points, four rebounds and a block.
— Vanderbilt junior transfer Ven-Allen Lubin showed plenty of athleticism inside, finishing with 18 points and a team-high 12 rebounds.

“I was really proud of him with his effort. I felt like his motor was really good,” Coach Davis said of Lubin, adding that he doesn’t want him to just “fit in” with the rest of the roster.

“ ‘I didn’t recruit you to be a role player,’ ” Davis recalls telling Lubin. ” ‘I recruited you to be a big-time player. And so you do you, and then the team will fit around you.’ And I feel like every day he’s getting more and more comfortable with that.”

UNC repeatedly beat Johnson C. Smith on pick-and-rolls, and after a tough first 11 minutes when the Bulls were hot shooters, the Tar Heels were dominant on both ends, turning up the defensive pressure and taking better control under the boards.

Johnson C. Smith scored four 3-pointers and made some tough shots to stay within two, 25–23, in the first 11 minutes. UNC turned up the defensive intensity, though, with an RJ Davis steal turned into a Trimble layup off a lob pass, igniting a 28–6 run to seize a 24-point lead, 53–29, after transition layups from Trimble and freshman Powell.

Coach Davis said that picking up the tempo in the final 12 minutes of the first half turned the game around after the Bulls were shooting 50% before that.

“What allows us the transition at the pace in which I want to go from defense to offense — it starts with defense and getting rebounds, and we weren’t getting stops, and we weren’t getting rebounds,” Davis said. “From that point on, we did a better job of guarding the ball, getting stops, getting rebounds.

“[That] then allowed us to get out in transition,” Davis said. “In terms of the pace, I did like it. I still feel like we can go even faster, but I did like the pacing way … the way we lived a lot in primary break, where we’re getting layups and dunks and deep post catch and getting fouled, get to the free throw line and quick, open 3s by our best 3-point shooters.”

It is quickly becoming evident that there will be better spacing in the post-Armando Bacot era, and the Tar Heels have the perimeter shooting to make opposing teams pay.

“In these lineups, we’ve got multiple guys that can knock down threes and putting teams in closeout positions,” Coach Davis said. “We can put the ball on the floor, and our goal is always to attack the basket through post or penetration. We’ll just have to do it maybe a little bit differently, as opposed to having Armando down low on the block and being able to throw the ball to him.”

It remains to be seen how deep Coach Davis’ rotation will be in the heart of the ACC season, but he played many different lineups and showed that the Tar Heels will have plenty of contrasting looks.

“There’s a number of different lineups that we can play. I think we can go big, I think we can go small,” Davis said. “There’s a lot of athleticism and versatility out there. I really think the lineups — in terms of which ones work the best — could be game-to-game. And so that’s one of the exciting things about our group. … I did see all the rotations and the lineups that I wanted to see, and I was really encouraged by the versatility and the type of depth that we had.”

There will be a tradeoff against some opponents with RJ Davis, Cadeau and Trimble on the court with height disparity, but Coach Davis said it’s a productive one.

“I like as many playmakers out there on the floor as possible,” Coach Davis said. “When you have guys like RJ, Elliot and Seth out there on the floor, you can always get into your offense. You always have guys that can create a shot for themselves, but also for their teammates. And so when you run a play and you don’t get a shot, we have multiple guys that can create a shot in our freelance offense, late shot-clock situations that allow us to get high percentage shots.”

Carolina led 59–34 at halftime, and rolled from there. Topping off the joyride for UNC was walk-on John Holbrook’s dunk in the final minute.

NOTES — Carolina opens the season on Monday, Nov. 4, at 9 p.m. (ACC Network) at home against Elon. A year ago, the Phoenix opened the season with a 101–78 loss at Wake Forest, lost four of their last five games and finished 13–19. … UNC visits No. 1 Kansas on Friday, Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. ET (ESPN2). The Jayhawks, who lost an exhibition game Friday at Arkansas 85–69, open at home Monday, Nov. 4, against Howard. … UNC dominated fast break points 34–0. … It was Carolina’s second exhibition win over Johnson C. Smith in three seasons after a 101–40 victory in 2022. … Graduate Georgia Tech transfer forward Ty Claude was unavailable for the exhibition as UNC works through eligibility issues. … Johnson C. Smith forward Ashton Sherrill, who led the Bulls with 16 points, directed some profanity at the UNC bench after hitting a 3-pointer in the first 90 seconds, drew a technical foul and quickly found a spot on the bench. … With a lot of empty seats, fans with upper-level seats were allowed to move to the lower level at the first TV timeout. The attendance was announced as 16,123.

No. 9 UNC 127, Johnson C. Smith 64

Date	Month/day	Time	Opponent/event (current ranks)	TV/ record
	October
15	Tuesday	W, 84–76	at Memphis	Exhibition
27	Sunday	W, 127–63	vs. Johnson C. Smith	Exhibition
	November
4	Monday	9 p.m.	vs. Elon	ACCN
8	Friday	7 p.m. ET	at No. 1 Kansas	ESPN2
15	Friday	8 p.m.	vs. American	ACCN
22	Friday	12:30 a.m ET	at Hawaii	ESPN2
			Maui Invitational
25	Monday	11:30 p.m. ET	Dayton	ESPN2
26	Tuesday	8:30 or 11 ET	No. 11 Auburn or Iowa State	ESPN or ESPNU
27	Wednesday	2:30 ET, 5 p.m., 9:30 or midnight	Memphis, No. 3 UConn, Colorado or Michigan State	ESPN or ESPN2
	December		ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge
4	Wednesday	7:15	vs. No. 2 Alabama	ESPN
			—————————
7	Saturday	2 p.m.	vs. Georgia Tech	ACCN
14	Saturday	4 p.m.	vs. LaSalle	The CW
			Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte
17	Tuesday	7 p.m.	No. 21 Florida	ESPN
			CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden
21	Saturday	3 p.m.	UCLA	CBS
			—————————
29	Sunday	8 p.m.	vs. Campbell	ACCN
	January
1	Wednesday	TBA	at Louisville	ACCN
4	Saturday	Noon	at Notre Dame	CBS
7	Tuesday	9 p.m.	vs. SMU	ACCN
11	Saturday	4 p.m.	at N.C. State	ACCN
15	Wednesday	7 p.m.	vs. Cal	ACCN
18	Saturday	2:15	vs. Stanford	The CW
21	Tuesday	9 p.m.	at Wake Forest	ESPN
25	Saturday	2:15 p.m.	vs. Boston College	The W
28	Tuesday	9 p.m.	at Pittsburgh	ESPN
	February
1	Saturday	6:30 p.m.	at No. 7 Duke	ESPN
8	Saturday	4 p.m.	vs. Pittsburgh	ESPN or ESPN2
10	Monday	7 p.m.	at Clemson	ESPN
15	Saturday	6 p.m.	at Syracuse	ESPN
19	Wednesday	7 p.m.	vs. N.C. State	ESPN or ESPN2
22	Saturday	4 p.m.	vs. Virginia	ESPN
24	Monday	7 p.m.	at Florida State	ESPN
	March
1	Saturday	Noon	vs. Miami	ESPN or ESPN2
4	Tuesday	7 p.m.	at Virginia Tech	ESPN, ESPN2 orESPNU
8	Saturday	6:30	vs. No. 7 Duke	ESPN
11– 15	Tues.–Sat.		ACC tournament Spectum Center, Charlotte