Carmichael Arena was a sea of pink on Sunday afternoon for the annual “Play4Kay” game in honor of late North Carolina State University women’s basketball coach Kay Yow.
With North Carolina chancellor, Carol Folt, and former North Carolina governor, Bev Perdue, by her side, coach Sylvia Hatchell presented the Kay Yow Cancer Fund with $10,000 at half-court before the rivalry fully kicked into gear.
“It’s State and Carolina,” Hatchell said. “When Kay was alive and we played them, it didn’t matter what a team was ranked, it was always unbelievable. The players just played out of their minds. We have a fierce rivalry, but we also have a connection there. It’s just not the same with out Kay. Kay Yow was NC State women’s basketball, and I think in some way she still is because of who she was and what she stood for, and how her legacy is carrying on so much now.”
In the 80-66 loss to NC State, freshman Stephanie Watts led the Tar Heels with a career-high 30 points and 13 rebounds. In addition, freshman Destinee Walker contributed 13 points, while sophomore Jamie Cherry added 13.
NC State was led by Miah Spencer’s 25 points, followed by Dominique Wilson’s 19.
UNC now has a losing record on the season at 14-15 overall, while 4-10 against ACC opponents. With the win, NC State is 18-9 overall and 9-5 in the ACC, with two of the nine ACC wins coming against North Carolina.
UNC created a season-high record with its 12 three-pointers throughout the game, but they also went only 6-for-23 from the field in the second half. Combined with only four points in the paint overall, compared to NC State’s 26, it cost the Tar Heels a win.
Perhaps motivated by their last game, a 76-60 loss against Pittsburgh, or maybe looking to redeem themselves from a brutal 78-49 loss the last time the two teams met, the Tar Heels came out hot. Scoring the first eight points of the game, UNC was met with an eruption of cheers as warring UNC and NC State fans exchanged chants.
At 5:53 in the first, North Carolina had worked its way to an 11-4 lead after an early onslaught of three-pointers from Watts and Cherry, as well as a jumper from redshirt junior Hillary Summers, arguably three of UNC’s most consistent players.
Things looked good for UNC as the Tar Heels hit five three-pointers in the first period, quickly building a lead. North Carolina had secured a 24-13 lead after 10 minutes.
Then the momentum switched. With two minutes remaining before intermission, North Carolina had allowed their once large lead to dwindle to just 36-30 after having a 17-point lead two minutes into the second period.
Wes Moore, NC State coach, said he couldn’t be more proud of his team’s resiliency.
“We knew North Carolina would come out and be the aggressor,” he said. “They came out firing 3s up from everywhere and it would’ve been easy for our kids to just say ‘hey, it’s not our day,’ but they kept fighting. Carolina’s got a lot of young, talented players out there. I know their quantity isn’t the greatest, but their quality is very good.”
A scoring drought of 5:40 for UNC gave the Wolfpack a 39-36 lead at the half as NC State closed out the second period on an 18-0 run.
“We started out really strong, I know Stephanie was hitting down shots in the first half,” Walker said. “I think the second quarter is what really hit us. The second quarter is what I think was our big downfall, despite starting hard in the first.”
At 5:15 of the third period, UNC had only scored three more points since returning from halftime, as the Wolfpack continued to cushion their lead, up 55-39.
Facing some foul trouble, North Carolina senior Rachel McGirt was inserted into the game during the third, as both Summers and Walker had four fouls.
The Tar Heels are no stranger to disappointing third periods, but despite being outscored 25-19, UNC cut NC State’s highest lead in the period from 18 to just 7 with 1:07 remaining in the third. NC State led 64-55 at the opening of the fourth period.
With 30 points and 10 rebounds in the first three periods of the game, Watts, last week’s ACC Rookie of the Week, had already surpassed her career-high of 27 points in a game.
“She was hot,” Hatchell said of Watts. “I don’t know how she couldn’t be rookie of the year in the ACC. We’ve got good freshmen in the league, but it’ll be hard for somebody to do better than what she’s done. Once we’ve gotten to ACC play she’s had some really good games against better teams.”
UNC battled back, attempting a comeback that wouldn’t happen. The closest the Tar Heels would get to the Wolfpack in the final 10 minutes was within 6 points early on in the fourth period, as they eventually closed out the final minutes 1-for-8 on their last field-goal attempts.
On the team’s downfall from the first to second period, Watts cited a defensive breakdown.
“Sometimes we didn’t match-up on transition defense well, that was one of the main things we tried to work on in practice, so that led to a couple quick 3s,” she said. “Two times down they got back-to-back three’s, so that hit us hard. When we weren’t playing well shots stopped falling on our offense and that kind of messed up our defense as well.”
North Carolina will play a seven o’clock game on Thursday night at Virginia, and then will return to Carmichael Arena next Sunday to close out the regular season against Duke at 3 o’clock.
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