Chapel Hill, NC (My Sportsbook) - The top-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels open up the home portion of their 2007-08 schedule, as they welcome the Iona Gaels to Chapel Hill in first-round action of the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Invitational.
The Heels will take on South Carolina State at home in the second round, before moving on to Las Vegas next week to finish out the tournament. This will mark the 300th all-time game to be played at the Dean E. Smith Center. Roy Williams's team began the new season with high hopes, but got a bit of a scare in the season-opener, edging out a tough Davidson squad in Charlotte, 72-68.
The Gaels begin their 2007-08 season with six straight games away from home. It has not been a successful venture thus far, with Iona dropping decisions to Robert Morris (72-66) and most recently, Princeton (66-58). Following this game, Iona will head to Norfolk to battle Old Dominion in second-round action.
This is just the fourth all-time meeting between these two teams, with UNC holding a 2-1 series advantage. However, the last time these two teams met in 2002, Iona posted a 65-56 win in New York.
The Gaels have not shown much at the offensive end in the first two games and will need to step it up if they are to even keep things close against the Tar Heels. After netting just 66 points in the season-opener, Iona took a step back with a 58-point performance at Princeton. Dexter Gray and Milan Prodanovic did their best to spark the team offensively, netting 18 and 16 points, respectively. However, the remainder of the team could muster just 24 points combined. The Gaels did show some life in the second half, hitting 13-of-23 shots from the floor (.565), but it wasn't enough to get past the Tigers. Iona struggled big time from long range in the game (1-of-10) and turned the ball over 17 times, two big reasons for the loss. Gray and Prodanovic are the only two reliable offensive threats in the early going, averaging 16 and 14.5 ppg, respectively.
The Tar Heels have so much talent that they are going to win games this year even when they are not clicking on all cylinders. The season-opener against Davidson is a perfect example. Despite turning the ball over a whopping 19 times, UNC was able to rally when needed to take the victory. The Heels trailed by as many as seven points in the first half, but never wavered and poured it on when necessary. Sophomore guard Wayne Ellington posted a career-high 20 points to lead the charge. He was followed by All-American Tyler Hansbrough, who netted 14 points, while grabbing the same amount of rebounds. Danny Green was an big part of the win as well, coming off the bench to add 11 points and five rebounds in 29 minutes of work. This is a team chock-full of talented performers. Hansbrough will lead the way, but Ellington, Ty Lawson, Marcus Ginyard and company are more than capable of complementing the 6-9 junior on any given night.
