UNC has made a habit this season of eventually taking care of business against lower-tier opponents — even if it doesn’t always look pretty early on.

Tuesday night’s win over East Tennessee State followed a familiar script. The Tar Heels were sloppy in stretches of the first half, gave up far too many second-chance opportunities, and allowed ETSU to hang around longer than they should.

We saw it against USC Upstate over the weekend, Saint Bonaventure in Fort Myers, and even flashes of it against Georgetown.

For much of the opening 16 minutes, UNC looked like a team still searching for consistency. ETSU won the rebounding battle early, generated extra possessions, and forced Carolina to defend longer than it wanted to.

Then, with about three to four minutes left in the first half, everything flipped.

UNC finally locked in defensively, cleaned up the glass, and turned stops into easy offense. That surge carried into the second half and quickly put the game out of reach.

Henri Veesaar was the centerpiece of that turnaround, delivering a career night with 26 points on an ultra-efficient 10-of-11 shooting performance.

Caleb Wilson complemented him perfectly, pouring in 20 points of his own while providing energy on both ends of the floor. Once UNC found its rhythm, the talent gap became obvious.

Still, the bigger takeaway wasn’t just the final score — it was the process. Carolina continues to win games, but it’s also still learning how to play complete ones.

Slow starts and defensive lapses are manageable now, but that will become a lot more difficult in ACC play if they don’t clean it up against Duke, Louisville, Virginia, etc.

For all of the talk, though, about Carolina sometimes not playing complete games, they’re still 10-1 with nice wins against Kentucky and Kansas. And they’ve done almost all of that without Seth Trimble in the lineup.

It’s sounding more and more like Seth Trimble‘s return could happen any game now.

The Heels now head to Ohio State on Saturday for a meeting with the 8-2 Buckeyes.