Kyrie Irving said he has spoken to Duke's Mike Krzyzewski three times since the season began.

"He didn't like the pace I was playing at in the first game," Irving said in reference to his NBA opener on Monday, a night he shot 2-of-12 from the field in a loss to Toronto.

"He said I needed to play a little bit quicker, which I agree with. He offered as much advice as he could."

Irving certainly played a quicker game Wednesday in Detroit, where he scored 14 points and added seven assists.

"We both know he needs to play faster," Cavaliers coach Byron Scott said. "[Irving] knows it. We want to be that type of team. Hearing it from me and also hearing it from a great coach like Mike, who coached him for the last year and knows him pretty well, I think kind of reinforces the way we want him to play. I don't have a problem with that."

Shabazz Muhammad is looking at Kentucky, Duke, UCLA, Arizona, Kansas and UNLV.

USC, the alma mater of Muhammad’s father, Ron Holmes, is apparently out, as is Texas A&M.

“I narrowed my list down actually to six,” he said at the City of Palms Classic. “I think it was a good thing for me to narrow them down to six because a lot of schools were calling that I wasn’t really interested in. So now I can stay grounded on the court and get ready and go through the season.”

Harrison Barnes scored only nine points in each of the last two games, ending a streak of 24 straight double-figure outings that started following a nine-point showing at Duke in February.

Tar Heels coach Roy Williams isn’t overly concerned about Barnes’ lack of production.

"I told you guys that last year, and every one of you thought I was crazy," Williams told reporters Monday night. "At the end of the year, you forgot that I told you that. You didn't say I was right; you just forgot I told you."

Barnes noted his struggles to finish at the rim.

"There’s not too many concerns," Barnes said Tuesday. "I missed a lot of open shots. (Monday) was just a matter of finishing a layup and making some free throws. Those are things you can correct. For the most part you just have to continue to play. With so many games right back to back, you just have to have a short memory."

James Michael McAdoo ‘s overall lack of aggressiveness helps explain why the forward hasn’t been more effective this season.

“Thinking about it at first, I didn't think it would be as hard,” McAdoo said. “But going into this stretch here at home, I'm looking forward to it, just to where I can get into a groove and hit my stride.”

McAdoo is averaging just 5.4 points and 3.6 rebounds in 13.9 minutes.

“This is a big change from a small private school league in Virginia to the ACC,” Williams said. “He's playing against guys just as big, just as quick, long arms and those kind of things — it's a huge adjustment for him, being asked to do it against that caliber of player every single day.”

The Naismith Hall of Fame announced that North Carolina’s Kendall Marshall, Ohio State’s Aaron Craft, and Kentucky’s Marquis Teague are among 64 point guards nominated for the 2012 Bob Cousy Award.

The annual award, named for Hall of Famer and former Boston Celtic Bob Cousy, recognizes college basketball's top point guard.

See below for the remaining list of 2012 Bob Cousy Award candidates:

• Randy Davis, Ball State
• Pierre Jackson, Baylor
• Keegan Bell, Chattanooga
• Andre Young, Clemson
• Andrew Lawrence, College of Charleston
• Brian Barbour, Columbia
• Shabazz Napier, Connecticut
• Chris Wroblewski, Cornell
• Antoine Young, Creighton
• JP Kuhlman, Davidson
• Ray McCallum, Detroit
• Seth Curry, Duke
• TJ McConnell, Duquesne
• Kenny Boynton, Florida
• Erving Walker, Florida
• Luke Loucks, Florida State
• Jeff Peterson, Florida State
• Tony Taylor, George Washington
• James Fields, Georgia State
• Brandyn Curry, Harvard
• Scott Machado, Iona
• Stephen Thomas, IUPUI
• Tyshawn Taylor, Kansas
• Tyreek Duren, La Salle
• Mackey McKnight, Lehigh
• Casper Ware, Long Beach State
• Peyton Siva, Louisville
• Damier Pitts, Marshall
• Will Barton, Memphis
• Joe Jackson, Memphis
• Malcolm Grant, Miami
• Trey Burke, Michigan
• Kaylon Williams, Milwaukee
• Dee Bost, Mississippi State
• Mike Dixon, Missouri
• Will Cherry, Montana
• Kendall Williams, New Mexico
• Lorenzo Brown, NC State
• Stallon Saldivar, Northern Arizona
• Reggie Hamilton, Oakland
• D.J. Cooper, Ohio University
• Jared Cunningham, Oregon State
• Tim Frazier, Penn State
• Zack Rosen, Pennsylvania
• Ashton Gibbs, Pittsburgh
• Lewis Jackson, Purdue
• Bryan Dougher, Stony Brook University
• Scoop Jardine, Syracuse
• Brandon Triche, Syracuse
• Wil Peters, Tennessee State
• Myck Kabongo, Texas
• Dash Harris, Texas A&M
• Hank Thorns, TCU
• Will Weathers, Troy
• Brad Tinsley, Vanderbilt
• Maalik Wayns, Villanova
• Erick Green, Virginia Tech
• Abdul Gaddy, Washington
• Tony Wroten, Washington
• Trey Sumler, Western Carolina
• Jordan Taylor, Wisconsin

Tar Heels forward John Henson is the ACC’s early leader in rebounds (10.6 per game), blocked shots (3.3 per game) and double-doubles (five).

Add an effective mid-range jumper to his repertoire and the elastic 6-foot-11 junior would loom as a supreme weapon on both ends of the court.

“I’m hitting them in practice and just building off of it,” he said.

“I’ve worked on those shots a lot, day after day,” he said. “But hitting them in a game is something that builds more confidence than anything. Just trying to become a complete player. Finally, it’s starting to come around.”

Shabazz Muhammad told Rivals.com that Duke, Kentucky, UCLA and UNLV are the four schools that stand out to him and that UCLA's struggles are affecting his recruitment.

"It affected it when UCLA was losing early," Muhammad said. "It had me thinking how I'd fit in. It's tough. I don't want to go to a school on the down turn. But I think they can turn it around."

Through the Tar Heels’ first ten games, Harrison Barnes’ scoring efficiency on catch-and-shoot/0-dribble possessions is a robust 1.51 points per possession. This includes a sizzling 55.6 percent from behind the 3-point arc.

On possessions in which he takes a single dribble, Barnes’ efficiency falls off to 0.81 points per possession.

When using multiple dribbles, it drops further to 0.66 points per possession. With 2+ dribbles, Barnes is shooting just 31.3 percent through 10 games with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 0.33 (3 assists, 9 turnovers).

Harrison Barnes has the worst stop percentage -- which measures the percentage of opponent individual possessions directly stopped by a player -- of any Tar Heel rotation player at 50.6 percent.

He's allowing opponents to shoot 49.0 percent on three-point attempts, and his defensive rebounding percentage has dropped from 12.6 as a freshman to a non-factor-level 7.4.

The NCAA recently approved a package that will allow conferences the ability to give full-scholarship athletes $2,000 in spending money.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said it’s a good first step, but $2,000 is “cutting it short.”

"I think that kids should get more," he said. "They shouldn’t get paid. But a lot of kids that go here get some aid (and) a small number of kids have a better scholarship than athletes."