Chapel Hill, NC -- (Sports Network) - Deon Thompson poured in 20 points and pulled down 10 rebounds, as sixth-ranked North Carolina opened defense of its national championship with an 88-72 victory over Florida International in Isiah Thomas' head coaching debut with the Golden Panthers.

Coming off its second national championship in five years, a win over Michigan State in the title game, the Tar Heels received a balanced effort for coach Roy Williams in the centennial season of the program.

Ed Davis had 13 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks in the game, which is part of the 2K Sports Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. Marcus Ginyard and Tyler Zeller each chipped in 12 points for the Tar Heels (1-0), who started the season with a fairly new cast of characters, as Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green are gone from last year's title team.

Even though the Tar Heels won commandingly, Williams noted the need for improvement.

"We had 26 turnovers. I had to chew the last five guys out for making four turnovers in the last two minutes of the game," said the UNC coach. "I told them to work their tail off in practice. If you want to get in the game then don't turn the ball over."

Marvin Roberts paced FIU (0-1) with 18 points. Antoine Watson added 16 points and six assists, while Tremayne Russell tallied 10 points and four steals.

Returning just five letter-winners from last year's 13-20 team, the Golden Panthers have a big hill to climb with Hall of Famer Thomas at the helm. The school hasn't posted a winning season since 1999-2000. Thomas, a former NBA head coach and general manager, sent shock waves through the coaching community when he was hired in April, saying he would donate his first year's salary back to the school.

"I felt like we were definitely playing against an NBA team," said Thomas. "They definitely have three pros on this team. Thompson is about as good as anybody the league has right now. The bigs that they have when they were in the game they were quite skilled, they played on the perimeter, they played inside. They are going to be a tough basketball team."

Watson's three-point play had FIU within 13-12 just over five minutes into the game, but UNC ran off the next seven points, capped by Thompson's jumper. A bucket by Will Graves finished an 11-2 spurt, moving the difference to 36-20 at the five-minute mark and the margin remained at 16 (46-30) at the half.

Thompson accounted for the first five points of the second half and Zeller's jumper moved the cushion to 61-35 with 13 1/2 minutes left. The defending champions were on cruise control the rest of the game as UNC shot 16-of-25 from the floor over the last 20 minutes.

Game Notes

Thomas coached his team's opener despite his mother recently having open-heart surgery...UNC started the season wearing throwback uniforms from the 1957 national championship team...UNC hosts NC Central on Wednesday in another game in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic in the Smith Center...FIU's next game is Friday at Monmouth...This was the earliest season opener in UNC history...North Carolina is 93-7 all-time in home openers, winning 77 of its last 79 such games...UNC shot 55.7 percent from the field, compared to 36.8 for FIU.