PITTSBURGH — North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams likes to say that everything looks better when the ball goes through the basket. Isaiah Hicks can certainly attest to that. The senior forward had gone nearly 66 minutes of actual game time since his last field goal, more than a game and a half over the span of a week, when he finally got a shot to go down at the 17:06 mark of the second half Saturday at Pittsburgh. It was an occasion met with a visible sense of relief both from Hicks and his supportive teammates. “It felt good,” Hicks said in the ultimate understatement. “Kennedy (Meeks) was like, ‘there you go, finally.’ Hopefully this gets me out of that slump or whatever you want to call it.” No matter what you want to call it, there’s no questioning that Hicks has been scuffling of late. He was held scoreless in the Tar Heels’ win against Louisville last Wednesday, the first time since his freshman season that he was held without a point. Some of his recent inefficiency can be traced to an all-too-familiar bout with foul trouble, which has limited his minutes. But he also missed 10 straight shots, many from point-blank range, before finally getting off the schneid with the layup that extended the Tar Heels’ lead to 44-34 just after halftime. “Finally is right,” Williams said after UNC’s 85-67 win against the Panthers. “That’s what I was thinking. In the first half he had a couple of them right there at the rim and he didn’t finish one when got fouled. I thought he was better today, to say the least” Hicks made one of the two free throws on the play Williams mentioned, his first point since the final 2:46 of the Virginia game Jan. 18. To his credit, the 2016 ACC Sixth Man of the Year didn’t let his lack of scoring affect the rest of his game. He had four assists in the first half against Pitt on his way to a career-high total of six. He also had six rebounds and a blocked shot. “I think Isaiah’s passing today was (good),” Williams said. “He couldn’t find the basket for the longest time but he did have some assists.” It wasn’t as if Hicks was intentionally looking to set up his teammates. He said it was more the product UNC’s strategy in attacking the Panthers’ zone defense. “When I catch it in the high post against the zone,” he said, “that man comes up to play me and somebody’s usually open.” Once the defenders began dropping off to cover Kennedy Meeks, Justin Jackson and the other Tar Heels, Hicks’ own shooting lanes began to open up. And once that first ball went through the basket, the next two did as well. And everything looked a lot better. “I was talking to him before the game, basically just telling him to take his time,” Meeks said of Hicks. “For him to finally get the ball in the basket was big for him and for us.”
