No. 9 UNC Lays the Smackdown on Davidson, 98-65

In their first game since defeating No. 2 Maryland this past Tuesday, the No. 9 UNC men’s basketball team put together another impressive performance on Sunday—blowing out the Davidson Wildcats by a score of 98-65.

Davidson entered Sunday with a 5-0 record, but could never seem to get rolling as Coach Bob McKillop’s team drops to 5-1 with its first loss of the year.

The Wildcats allowed the Tar Heels to score the game’s first 10 points, and were unable to shoot their way back into it—making just 34 percent of their shots thanks to some stingy defense by UNC.

Carolina head coach Roy Williams now sees his team improve to 7-1 with the win–having come out on top in all four of its games since its stunning loss to Northern Iowa.

“That was a nice, workmanlike effort,” Williams said after the game. “No question about that.

“Davidson’s a team that can really shoot the basketball, and they missed several shots early they normally make. Perhaps that made them stress a little bit more. They shot 23 percent in the first half.”

Five players reached double figures in scoring for the Tar Heels—including all three guards, Marcus Paige, Joel Berry, and Nate Britt.

Tying his career-high for the second time this season, Britt led the team with 17 points off the bench in just 16 minutes of playing time.

UNC also hammered Davidson in the rebounding department, grabbing 52 boards compared to the Wildcats’ 31. Many times in the game, a missed Davidson shot turned into easy transition buckets—as UNC finished with 26 points on the fast break alone.

“Rebounding, I thought was something,” Williams said. “Kennedy [Meeks] had seven rebounds in the first 10 minutes of the game and then ended up with 10 [rebounds] and nine [points]. Again, I thought it was a total team effort. We got a lot of good things from a lot of people.”

He then acknowledged Britt’s performance by saying that, “No question, Nate [Britt] acted like the microwave out there for a while. He came in and gave us a big lift.”

Coming off a 41-point effort in his team’s last game against Charlotte, Davidson guard Jack Gibbs was largely held in check by UNC on Sunday. For the game Gibbs finished with 19 points, but he connected on just seven of his 20 shots, and turned the ball over five times.

Listening to Paige, one of the players guarding him all game, it was clear that was largely a product of the Tar Heels’ defensive strategy.

“We game-planned for the three-point attack,” Paige said. “They shoot 30 threes a game—which is a lot. I think half of their attempts in the first half were threes.

“So we knew that coming in that we were gonna have to defend the three-point line, and run their guys off the line,” he added. “Gibbs is just a great all-around player, so we were gonna have to contain him.”

The feelings after such a dominant performance against a school like Davidson—one with a winning tradition and a penchant for playing the top teams in the country down to the wire—has Paige and the rest of the team feeling optimistic about the direction it’s heading here early in the season.

“[Davidson’s] a good team,” Paige said. “They were 5-0 coming in. Coach [Williams] said that was probably the second-best team, or you know, arguably the second-best team we’ve played outside of Maryland.

“So we had a lot of respect for them,” he continued. “We just played well today.”

Up Next:

The Tar Heels will take some time off for final exams this week, before heading to Austin, Texas on Saturday to take on the Texas Longhorns and their new head coach, Shaka Smart.

Game Notes:

• The 33-point win was the largest by Carolina over Davidson since an 89-20 win on Feb. 7, 1945. That was 28 games ago in the series.
•  The 98 points are a season high for UNC (previous was 92 vs. Fairfield).
• Carolina shot 50.7 percent from the floor, the fifth time in eight games and the second consecutive game that the Tar Heels shot 50 percent or better.
• Marcus Paige hit a pair of three-pointers. He moved past Wayne Ellington into second-place in career three-pointers at UNC with 231. Shammond Williams is first with 233.

 

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