James Michael McAdoo has too often allowed his emotions to get the best of him during his freshman season at North Carolina.

 “I did allow it to get to me at times,” McAdoo said. “The past couple weeks have been real big, ups in practice and downs in the games. I felt like I was really going to be able to turn it up for ACC play. I wasn’t, but at least it never affected my work ethic.”

McAdoo is coming off his most effective Atlantic Coast Conference game of the season, a nine-point, six-rebound performance in Sunday night’s victory against Georgia Tech.

“I want to be out there and when I’m out there I want to be productive, the player I know I can be, and not let whatever happens affect my confidence," McAdoo said.

McAdoo’s wired nature has left him susceptible to picking up fouls while also accentuating some awkwardness and lack of polish down low.

Tar Heels center Tyler Zeller is more aggressively battling for position, coach Roy Williams said.

“He’s going to the boards more; it’s pretty simple,’’ Williams said. “Early in the year, we’d have to yell at him to get to the boards, but I think he’s establishing a spot in there, he’s trying to get to the offensive boards. He got two offensive boards for baskets in the first half just by getting to the boards and finding an open spot. We need that.”

Indeed, Zeller has now pulled down 116 rebounds in his past 10 games, recording double-digit boards in nine of them.

In UNC’s first 10 games, he’d managed 10 or more rebounds only twice.

And entering this season, he had posted 10 or more rebounds only seven times.

Tar Heels point guard Kendall Marshall, who is averaging a team-high 31.2 minutes this season, doesn’t seem particularly worried about his potential increase in playing time now that starting shooting guard/back-up point guard Dexter Strickland is out for the season with a torn ACL in his right knee.

Since last season, he said, he’s learned to take better care of his body -- stretching more, getting to bed earlier.

Williams said Marshall could still improve in the weight room, but “he’s worked, done a nice job on his body. Not anything as much as I want him to do, but I might be able to say that about a lot of other guys, too.”

Still, he's sure his starting point guard can compete for longer stretches, just like last season.

“I think he can play 34, 35 minutes per game,’’ Williams said. “I hope that he doesn’t have to. But I think he can, if we ask him to.”

N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried said C.J. Leslie’s foul shooting has been "much better" since a recent adjustment in form and approach.

"We've worked with him on his release point - a little higher," Gottfried said. "His concentration - much better than it's been in the past. It's getting better there. I think he's improved in just about every aspect of his game."

Before facing Georgia Tech, Leslie shot 63.3 percent from the line in N.C. State's first 16 games. He's 9-for-17 (52.9 percent) in the last four games, with all but one of the attempts coming against Georgia Tech and Miami. He went 4-for-8 against the Yellow Jackets and was 5-for-6 against the Hurricanes before missing two attempts with 2:03 remaining.

"Just concentrating, stay on the line and make the shot," Leslie said.

Student attendance at Duke men’s basketball games has fallen consistently over the last five years, even dropping after Duke won its fourth national championship in 2010.

This season, approximately 650 undergraduates have attended each game, 150 fewer than during the 2008-09 season. As a result, Duke Athletics has begun to sell an increasing number of general admission tickets in the student section on a regular basis.

“It has nothing to do with the revenue. We just want it to be full,” Director of Marketing and Relations Mike Forman said. “If there were 1,200 students every game we would love it.”

Blue Devils guard Austin Rivers, removed from a starting lineup for one of the few times in his life, scored 20 points off the bench against Wake Forest.

When Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski informed Rivers that he would come off the bench against Wake Forest — marking the first time this season he wouldn’t be starting — the highly regarded freshman admitted he seethed.

“The past three days I haven’t slept. I’ve been thinking,” Rivers said. “I was so angry. You have no idea how angry I was. … But I realize that I need to mature.

“That’s what (Krzyzewski’s) intention was. I mean, he’s a genius. He knows what he’s doing. He’s going to make me better and this team is going to make me better.”

North Carolina hasn't won consecutive regular-season road games since February of last year, when the Tar Heels beat Clemson, N.C. State and Florida State.

"We need to correct a lot of things, and that's one of them," UNC senior forward Tyler Zeller said earlier this week. "We've got to be able to show that we can play on the road. And if we want to have a chance of winning the ACC, you've got to be able to win on the road."

Following an 80-70 loss against UNLV on Nov. 26 in Las Vegas, and the 73-72 defeat at Kentucky on Dec. 3, UNC's loss at Florida State was its third consecutive away from home.

“The biggest thing is just a sense of urgency,” UNC sophomore Harrison Barnes said. “Coming out - just being ready to play on the defensive end."

Tar Heels power forward John Henson is right-handed but is comfortable shooting left-handed as well.

"I love my left hand," he said. "I came in shooting my left-hand jump hook - that was kind of my go-to move. Now that I've expanded it, it's a little easier to get that shot off now."

He ranks second in the ACC in field-goal percentage (54.6 percent), but that's not only because of his dunks and post moves. He also has developed a jumper.

"You always want to improve something every year, and I felt like offensively is where I had to improve this year," Henson said. "The little jump shot I've been working on, it's not necessarily automatic, but it'll keep the defender honest."

When Kyrie Irving departed for the NBA after his freshman year, he told his father that he would return to finish his degree.

“Five years,” Irving says with a grin, then pauses. “That’s extremely difficult.”

The five-year clock started ticking the moment NBA commissioner David Stern announced the former Duke point guard was Cleveland’s choice as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 draft last June.

“You may interpret it as ambitious, but we’re an education family,” says his father, Drederick, who was in Charlotte on Monday afternoon for the Cavaliers’ game against the Bobcats. “So for Kyrie, a five-year agreement to get his degree, that isn’t anything that’s foreign. He understands that a lot of people in our family, they have their degree, so it’s kind of inevitable for him that he’ll get his.”

Harrison Barnes is taking 35.3 percent of his shots from 10-20 feet, where he shoots just 31.3 percent.

Tar Heels coach Roy Williams disagrees with the notion that Barnes is settling for too many jumpers.

"I don't think that was valid at all,” Williams said. “Because for us, I want him to take the open shot. And we talked in the preseason, and last ... spring about what we wanted him to work on over the summer, and that was to get to the free throw line more. I think he was passing up open shots to penetrate and take more contested shots."

Barnes’ free throw rate (which is the percentage of free throws to field goal attempts) has increased from 24.9 percent as a freshman to 35.5 this season.