Lessons Learned as UNC basketball gets an academic win over USC Upstate

Bench Firepower

Hubert Davis got more rotation players on the floor, with ten Tar Heels getting non-Biscuit minutes. The bench contributed 25 points on the night, a splendid total, but there's one asterisk. Jonathan Powell had 17 of them!

This was a UNC career-high for the West Virginia transfer. The swing man was 3-for-6 from three, giving UNC some relief from Upstate's attempts to congest the post to prevent Caleb Wilson from tearing off the rims.

Powell's emergence as a bench scorer will be important insurance as the season moves forward. I don't want to jinx the team, so I'll just say that if SOMEONE gets injured, the starting line-up has one player taking on the honorary Leaky Black role of tall/versatile defender who doesn't score much, and a guard who is scoring a lot of single-field goal games.

If those two things stay consistent, Hubert Davis will need more scoring to make up for these deficits.