Tar Heels Tidbits: Coby White, Vince Carter make history, Ellington stays hot

The latest on North Carolina athletics including Vince Carter’s big performance, Wayne Ellington’s milestone, Coby White’s new scoring record and much, much more

Basketball season is half way over, and the North Carolina Tar Heels’ struggles to this point are well documented. Yes, they’re still having a good season. But no, they aren’t the team that won the national championship last season.

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Former Tar Heel standouts are performing well in the NBA, including Miami Heat shooting guard Wayne Ellington, Sacramento Kings’ rookie wing Justin Jackson, and 20-year veteran and future Hall-of-Famer Vince Carter.

Marquise Williams was recently honored by his alma mater, Mallard Creek High School. It was there that he put up gaudy numbers before having a successful four-year run with the Tar Heels that was capped off with an appearance in the 2015 ACC Championship game.

Baseball season is quickly approaching and a former Tar Heel has been named one of the top-100 prospects in Major League Baseball.

We’ve got all of that and more in this edition of Tar Heels Tidbits.

Baseball

• Houston Astros’ starting pitcher J.B. Bukauskas has been named to MLB Pipeline’s top-100 prospects of 2018. The former Tar Heel standout comes in at No. 76 and is considered the Astros’ sixth-best minor league prospect. Houston selected Bukauskas with the 15th overall pick in the 2017 MLB Draft, and is confident that he will eventually pitch in the team’s starting rotation.

Basketball

• The Tar Heels are fresh off of a disappointing home loss to in-state rival North Carolina State. The team’s offensive inconsistencies and lackadaisical defense can be blamed for the loss, as they shot poorly from long-distance, surrendered countless three-pointers and allowed mismatches off of switches that cost them important points late in the game.
• Former North Carolina sharpshooter Wayne Ellington is set to participate in this year’s 3-point Shooting Contest to be held during NBA All-Star Weekend in mid-February. Ellington is having the best season of his nine-year professional career, averaging 11.5 points per game and shooting a better percentage than he has since 2014. He recently hit his 150th three-pointer of the season, breaking his previous personal best of 149 that he set last year.

https://twitter.com/MiamiHEAT/status/957465463440707585

• Justin Jackson and Vince Carter combined for 35 points in a loss at San Antonio on Sunday night. The former Tar Heels hit 12-of-21 shots from the floor, including 5-of-10 from three-point range. Jackson added five rebounds and two assists, while Carter became the oldest player to score 20 points in a game since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1989.
• Reggie Bullock hit four more three-pointers in a loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday night. He’s now made 47 three-pointers on the season, and has career-highs in points, assists, blocks, steals, shooting percentage and minutes per game.

Football

• Dallas Cowboys’ offensive lineman Jonathan Cooper will be sidelined for the next four to five months after undergoing surgery to repair his left MCL. It was initially reported that he would be able to return in time for the start of OTAs, but Cooper’s doctors now think a return date in June is far more likely.
• Former UNC quarterback Marquise Williams was honored by Mallard Creek High School on Friday night. Williams, currently a quarterback for the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders, was awarded a helmet by his alma mater. He ended his high school career with 3,034 passing yards and 45 touchdowns. He also rushed for 1,147 yards and 19 touchdowns before joining the Tar Heels in 2012.

Recruiting

• Class of 2018 UNC signee Coby White became the all-time leading scorer in the state of North Carolina. The five-star combo guard scored 41 points for Greenfield on Saturday, breaking a 14-year-old record held by one-time North Carolina commit JamesOn Curry. After breaking the state scoring record and being named a 2018 McDonald’s All-American, White now shifts his focus to winning the North Carolina Independent Schools 1A state title.

• North Carolina’s lone commit from the class of 2019, Jeremiah Francis, cracked the top-50 of the latest 247Sports Composite rankings. The 6-foot-3, 190-pound point guard is the fifth-ranked player at his position, vaulting up recruiting boards since the time of his commitment to North Carolina in August.
• Roy Williams and the North Carolina coaching staff are targeting five-star power forward E.J. Montgomery. Williams and assistant coach Hubert Davis have both visited Montgomery in the past week, showing their obvious interest in the talented prospect. The 6-foot-10, 200-pound big man is ranked sixth in the 247Sports Composite and is currently working with a list of schools that includes Clemson, Duke, Georgetown, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, UCLA, USC, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest.