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CHAPEL HILL — In the 57th game of his college basketball career, Greensboro’s Will Graves wore a throwback North Carolina uniform straight out of 1957.

With a red waistband on the shorts and red stitching at the collar and sleeves, it was the uniform of an old national champion trotted out for the defending national champion.

“I love’em,” Graves said. “I love the throwbacks. I want to take mine home tonight.”

Instead, he took home a victory in the first start of his career.

Deon Thompson scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, leading No. 6 North Carolina’s parade of big men to an 88-72 victory over Florida International and new coach Isiah Thomas in the season opener Monday night at the Smith Center.

Ed Davis finished with 13 points and 11 rebounds for the Tar Heels (1-0). Marcus Ginyard and Tyler Zeller scored 12 apiece.

And Graves? The 2006 News & Record prep player of the year at Dudley started at small forward and scored six points, all in the first half. It was his first game back after his suspension in February for violating team rules, which put him on the sidelines for Carolina’s national championship run.

“To come in and start is great, but it’s really not that important,” Graves said. “I just feel like if I work hard in practice and coach likes what I do, I’m going to get minutes whether I’m a starter or coming off the bench. To live a dream and start for the team you’ve always loved, that’s great. But at the same time, whatever coach needs me to do, I’ll do it.”

What coach Roy Williams needs going forward is fewer turnovers. Carolina had 26 against the overmatched Golden Panthers (0-1).

“That’s just way too many turnovers,” said Thompson, the senior who notched the fourth double-double of his career. “… But I think with this team we’re definitely going to be a lot better defensively than offensively. Last year’s team had so many scorers, from Tyler (Hansbrough) to Ty (Lawson) to Wayne (Ellington) and Danny (Green). This team doesn’t have that many scorers, but we can make up for that on the defensive end.”

The Heels blocked eight shots — Davis had four — and they outrebounded FIU 24-9 in the second half, grabbing 18 on the defensive end and allowing only five second shots.

North Carolina used six players 6-foot-9 or taller. Often, three were in the game at the same time.

“We fought tonight, but we weren’t quite good enough and we weren’t quite big enough,” said Thomas, the former NBA star player and general manager making his college coaching debut. “… I felt like we were playing against an NBA team tonight, and they definitely have three pros on this team. Thompson is just about as good as anybody the league has right now. He’s tough, and the bigs they have were quite skilled when they played out on the perimeter. They’re going to be a tough basketball team.”

Carolina took command with a 23-8 scoring run in the first half. Ginyard hit a 3-pointer to start the run, and Graves finished it with a basket that made it 36-20 with 5:07 left in the half.

“First half we shot 12 threes, which is probably a little too much for this team,” Williams said. “… We’ve always been a team that did a great job getting to the free-throw line more than the other team, and just because they play zone (defense) does not mean we have to take the first outside shot we look at.”

North Carolina led by as many as 26 points in the second half, and Williams said the game should help his young team down the road.

“They tried to spread us out and drive (against) the big guys,” Williams said. “Basically what we faced tonight we’ll face a lot this year: Teams playing zone on one end and trying to spread and drive our big guys on the other. So it was great experience for us.”

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com