Michael Malone coached his first college basketball game Friday night in Greensboro and won it, 88-70 over USC, in an exhibition at First Horizon Coliseum. USC actually led 39-37 at halftime before North Carolina pulled away.
Malone is 54. He went 510-394 as an NBA head coach, 471-327 of that with Denver, where he won the 2023 NBA Finals before being fired in April 2025 with 79 games played in that season. North Carolina hired him on April 7, 2026 as the program’s 20th head coach, on a reported six-year deal worth about $50 million.
The Game Turned on Six Minutes
North Carolina trailed 53-49 with 13:33 left. Then it went on a 12-0 run while USC did not score for more than six minutes. Sayon Keita’s breakaway dunk at the 9:16 mark put the Tar Heels up eight and they led by double digits for the final 3:41.
USC shot 47 percent in the first half and 27 percent in the second. Malone went straight to that split afterward. “In the first half they shot 47%. In the second half, they shot 27%,” he said.
The One Returning Starter Carried It
Jarin Stevenson, a Chapel Hill native and Alabama transfer, is the only returning starter on a roster with 11 newcomers. He went for a career-high 25 points on 8-of-14 shooting with four threes, 5-of-6 from the line and 10 rebounds in 30 minutes, including 13 of North Carolina’s 30 points in the paint.
Neo Avdalas added 15 points, nine rebounds and five assists. Isaiah Denis had 14 with two threes. Freshman Maximo Adams put up 11 points and six rebounds. Keita had eight points, six rebounds and two blocks. The bench scored 35.
The two most expensive perimeter additions were the problem. Terrence Brown, who averaged 19.9 points at Utah last season, and Matt Able combined for five points and six turnovers, and all five of Brown’s points came in the final 1:42.
What Malone Liked
He singled out the freshman. “Maxi gives just relentless effort on the glass,” he said of Adams. “Maxi has a chance to be a special player, and I love working with him every single day.” On Denis: “He has been waiting for this opportunity, and he took it and ran with it tonight.”
He also stated a philosophy in six words: “We do not want to be a mid-range shooting team.” North Carolina shot 11-of-31 from three, 25-of-30 from the line and won the rebounding battle 47-33, with 18 turnovers.
Some Context on the Result
USC had only 11 available players, all of whom played, and the building was friendly to North Carolina. Rodney Rice led the Trojans with 22 points, Alijah Arenas had 17 and Darius Ratliff had 13 in his first collegiate start. USC forced 11 steals and scored 24 points off North Carolina’s turnovers.
On walking through the tunnel for his first college game, Malone said it was “really cool,” and that of the crowd reception, “I don’t take that lightly.” A couple of details are unsettled: one report rendered the halftime score as 53-51 and Adams at 13 points, and the official USC release has 39-37 and 11, which is what we have used. Cameron Fens did not play and no reason was given.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
