UNC Basketball: 3 keys for the game against Stanford

UNC Basketball will play its first home game of the season against Stanford and the Tar Heels will look to take advantage of some key aspects of the game.

No. 8 North Carolina and Stanford are in the middle of a home and home. The Tar Heels took care of the Cardinal by 24 at Maples last season. The series moves to the Dean Dome on Monday.

Surprisingly, UNC opened up with two straight road games. The committee made it clear that they favor wins away from home more than anything else. Regardless of who the opponent is. So the Heels erased the horrible memories of what Wofford did to them last season by beating the terriers on opening night. They then putting a beating on Elon.

Stanford hasn’t really done much since the hiring of Jerod Haase two years ago. He’s in his third years as they come off a 19-win campaign a season ago. There’s still a power-conference team and it looks better than the first two teams that the Heels played.

The Cardinal put up 96 in a win over Seattle to open up its season and held UNC Wilmington to under 60 on Friday night. Kenzie Okpala has been the story for this team in their first two games. He’s averaging 26 points per game, five boards and shooting over 57 percent from the field. They have two others averaging double-figures. They are poised to give North Carolina a good fight.

The whole country knows about Luke Maye. He’s on every preseason All-American list, heavy favorite to win Player of the Year and is on every watch list that he’s eligible for. It seems like every North Carolina preview I do, features Maye in some way. I won’t waste a slide on him specifically. But he’ll be back in key aspects for the team.

The other question mark for North Carolina so far this season has been Kenny Williams. Tar Heels fans weren’t as upset as you would expect over losing Joel Berry and Theo Pinson because Williams and Cameron Johnson were ready to take over.

Well Williams has been averaging 24.5 minutes, has one point and is zero for everything. He has however been averaging three assists per game. Maybe he’s too focused on being the floor general that was the biggest question mark coming into a season where the Tar Heels were being featured on many preseason final four lists.

North Carolina has been getting nice production from its recruiting class thus far. It’s been Coby White getting the start over Nassir Little. But Little has been scoring nicely from the bench. Both guys are in double-figures while Rechon Black has scored eight points in the first two games.

Those are the smaller storylines heading into North Carolina’s toughest game so far in this young season. Let’s touch on a few more as the Tar Heels get ready to do battle with the Stanford Cardinal on Monday night.