UNC vs. Stanford - Player of the Game: Garrison Brooks

You know a game was extremely ugly when we’re calling it that after North Carolina won and shot a pretty decent percentage. It’s just that almost everything else was bad.

UNC beat Stanford 67-63, but in doing that, they turned the ball of 24 times. They turned it over literally on a third of the possessions they had in the game. When that wasn’t happened, it was a total ref show. Between the two teams, 41 total fouls were called, a number of which on both sides were dubious. There was only one made field goal in the final three minutes of the game. It was all very dumb.

I say all that for this reason: there are no slam dunk choices for a player of the game.

Leading scorer Caleb Love put up 16 points. That’s pretty good. He was also 2-11 at the half and turned the ball over five times. Leaky Black played some pretty solid defense and also made a play an important shot down the stretch. He also finished with a -3 plus/minus, had four turnovers, and was disapointing for most of the game. Day’Ron Sharpe had UNC’s best plus/minus at +14, and finished with four points, seven rebounds, and four assists. He also managed to commit three turnovers in his 19 minutes.

All of that is why, by default, Garrison Brooks is getting it. He finished with 10 points and nine rebounds. Nearly a double double, that’s pretty good. He also finished with a nice little zero in the turnover column. The only other two Tar Heels to do that played a combined 11 minutes. Brooks did it in 29. After the mess that was this game, that means something.

He was also the driving force in UNC dominating the boards 43-23. As mentioned, he finished with nine rebounds, which was a team and game high. Five of them were offensive boards. When your teams is throwing the ball all over the place, getting second chances and keeping the other team from getting their own second chances is pretty important. Brooks did a good amount of that.

If you disagree, that’s fine! There are a lot of choices, and not because everyone played well and it’s hard to choose. Pretty much everyone did something bad at some point. Now, let’s never think about that game ever again.