Terrence Brown Goes Back at Michael Malone's Reasoning for UNC's Struggles

North Carolina didn't play too well in its exhibition games, though I'm not necessarily too worried about that. 

If we look back in a couple of weeks and North Carolina is still playing at this type of level, I'd have more concerns. 

For now, however, I'm more focused on North Carolina starting the season on Monday night against Western Carolina, a game in which it should win by 30-plus points if things go as planned. North Carolina definitely has some things to figure out, which also makes it important that it has some easier games to start the year.

I'm very curious to see what North Carolina is going to look like in real games because, as head coach Michael Malone has spoken about, there have been some problems. Mainly, the rebounding has been the biggest issue of them all. 

However, Malone also suggested after the exhibition game against Charlotte that his team might have been a bit nervous for whatever reason. 

He felt like North Carolina really settled in during the second half, though his star guard, Terrence Brown, didn't think that was the case. Brown said being nervous isn't in his vocabulary, and he felt like it was just the team trying to figure some things out together.

“That’s not in my vocabulary,” Brown said when asked if he thought his team was nervous in the opening frame, per On3. “I think we’re still trying to gel together. We’re still trying to learn how to play together. Obviously it was our first game in the Dean Dome, but we practice here every day, we were just missing shots.

“We’ve just got to make shots. We’ve got to step up and make shots. We come in here every single day. We shoot in this gym. We practice in this gym. We’ve just got to have the confidence to make the shots. And Coach puts the confidence in us. He doesn’t tell anybody on the court not to shoot.”

I think Malone and Brown both made fair points, though I can understand what Malone was saying, as well as Brown suggesting the team needed more time. 

That's part of the reason why I'm also pretty excited to see that North Carolina doesn't necessarily have too many tough games throughout its first six. It will take on Georgia in the fourth game of the year, but outside of that, there really shouldn't be too many worries. That gives guys like Brown an opportunity to really fit in with his team and see what guys like to do. Practice is one thing, but playing in actual games is always going to be the best way to improve on both sides of the basketball.