North Carolina Tops Maryland as Both Teams Show Title Potential, Red Flags

Playing at full strength for the first time in quite a few moons, the No. 9 North Carolina Tar Heels outlasted the No. 2 Maryland Terrapins in an 89-81 track meet at the Dean Smith Center on Tuesday night.

In the 2014 edition of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, Duke and Wisconsin waged war in what ended up being a preview of the national championship.

Might this have been deja vu all over again?

North Carolina opened the season ranked No. 1 in the nation with Maryland not far behind at No. 3, and for large stretches of the game, it felt like we were watching two of the best teams in the country exchanging haymakers.

Maryland's Melo Trimble was 0-of-6 from three-point range in his previous three games, but he was King Midas with the ball Tuesday. He drained his first four three-point attempts and finished the night with 23 points, 12 assists and one APB for his arrest for this assault on poor Nate Britt's ankles:

Trimble's backcourt partner in crime, Rasheed Sulaimon, had a mighty fine night as well, even though the Duke transfer was vehemently booed every time he touched the ball. Sulaimon was 5-of-9 from three-point range and seemed to always have the ball when the Terrapins desperately needed a bucket, delivering more often than not.

But it was the 34 points from North Carolina's starting backcourt that stole the show.

Marcus Paige was phenomenal in his 2015-16 debut, looking about as rusty as a brand-new car in pouring in 20 points with five assists, two steals and just one turnover. The 80 percent stroke from three-point land was nice, but it was particularly promising to see him playing with reckless abandon in his first game back from a hand injury.

Paige seemed tentative for most of last season while battling a litany of foot and ankle injuries. But he unofficially led both teams in seconds spent on the floor as he was diving all over the place and drawing charges at crucial junctures of the game.

"Having him on the court was a huge security blanket for us," UNC head coach Roy Williams told Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter after the game. "Needless to say, I'm a heck of a lot better coach when he's out there."

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Paige wasn't alone out there, though.

Joel Berry had a great game, sinking three triples en route to 14 points with five assists and two steals. Kennedy Meeks stuffed the stat sheets with a dozen points and at least a deuce in the other four major categories. And Brice Johnson continued his excellent start to the season with 16 more points.

It was a full team effort and a reminder of what North Carolina can accomplish now that it's healthy.

Exhilarating as the game was to watch, however, there were some red flags for both teams.

For the Terrapins, this was the fifth time in the past six games they came out of the gates with all the vigor of a tortoise on sleeping pills.

At the 10-minute mark of the first half against Georgetown, Maryland held a slim 14-11 lead. Against Rider, they trailed 16-13. They also were behind Illinois State 19-17 and were tied at 17-17 with Cleveland State. More disturbing, three of those four games were played at home, and the fourth was on a neutral court.

Grant Halverson/Getty Images

At the same juncture against the Tar Heels, they were down 24-16, and it could have been so much worse as they had already committed 10 turnovers.

Needless to say, averaging one turnover per minute isn't a great idea, particularly on the road against a team of North Carolina's caliber. It's a minor miracle Maryland stayed in this game. Prior to Tuesday, Trimble and Co. were generally pretty careful with the ball, so Mark Turgeon and staff should hope this night was just an anomaly.

In the previously mentioned four games with slow starts in the "first quarter," the Terrapins absolutely dominated the "fourth quarter," outscoring those opponents by a combined margin of 101-64 in the final 10 minutes. End-game free-throw shooting while holding on to a moderate lead is partially to thank for the size of that advantage. But there's no denying that Maryland has played much better in the second half of most of its games.

After the slow start against Cleveland State, sophomore guard Jared Nickens told Don Markus of the Baltimore Sun, "Coach was mad at us going into halftime and we just responded. We didn't want to make it a close game, so we came out and just played harder, played with more effort and got the job done."

Gerry Broome/Associated Press

Perhaps they could try going into the first half with that kind of mentality?

Aside from more touches from Diamond Stone, if there's one thing we desperately need to see from Maryland over the course of the next three-plus months, it's more fire from the opening tip. Putzing around for the first few media timeouts is a slippery slope to play with in March, particularly in the early rounds.

We've all watched enough NCAA tournament games to know that if you don't kill an underdog by halftime, it'll hang around until the final buzzer.

For the Tar Heels, lack of defense is becoming a very serious problem. Our C.J. Moore wrote about it in the lead-up to the game, and it's pretty unlikely he's any less concerned about Carolina's D after watching Maryland score 81 points despite committing 22 turnovers.

The 13 steals make it seem like the Tar Heels played solid defense, but at least half of those were the result of Maryland's sheer carelessness. Rather, Trimble got anywhere he wanted on the court as the Terrapins shot better than 50.0 percent from the field and kept alive North Carolina's now seven-game streak of allowing its opponent to make at least eight three-pointers.

Also of concern was North Carolina's late-game free-throw shooting.

This appeared to be one of its biggest strengths coming into the game, as the Tar Heels were 33-of-39 from the line in the CBE Hall of Fame Classic. However, they were just 2-of-9 from the charity stripe in the final 80 seconds Tuesday night. Good thing Maryland decided to suddenly go ice-cold and miss its final five shots, or the Tar Heels would have blown this game at the line.

But those are minor concerns for great teams, right? Force-feed the Terrapins some energy drinks before the game, make the Tar Heels work harder on free throws and hope Paige's return eventually leads to greater team defense.

Simple enough.

If and when those issues are fixed, let's hope we get to see a rematch of Tuesday's game at some point in the late stages of the 2016 NCAA tournament. Because despite the flaws on both sides, this was arguably the most entertaining game thus far in the 2015-16 season.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.