North Carolina set a new record in Thursday night’s game against Louisville in Carmichael Arena. The record, allowing a season-high 35 points in one period, led to UNC’s demise, as they fell 78-60 to the undefeated Cardinals.

The Tar Heels, now 12-12 on the season, were coming off a 49-78 loss against N.C. State in which the team lacked spark without head coach Sylvia Hatchell directing from the bench. Coach Hatchell was serving the first of her two suspensions, with the initial suspension being university-sanctioned due to her contact with an official on Jan. 24 against Duke.

Stephanie Watts, a freshman guard, said the team plays entirely different within Hatchell’s presence. The team was under assistant coach Andrew Calder’s guide for their N.C. State loss.

“It’s a whole different team; a whole different atmosphere when coach Hatchell’s there. She just brings such a passion and love for the game that it just rubs off onto us. You have no choice, but to just elevate to her level of intensity.”

Hatchell touched on her battle with leukemia as a source of toughness in her life that she pulls from in order to motivate her players during their seven game losing streak.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I went seven months not knowing whether I was going to live or die. I learned a lot. I’m pretty tough and you don’t know how strong you can be until strong is all you have. I’ve tried to teach them the toughness that I have and how to win through adversity.”

Despite Coach Hatchell’s return and early lead changes that kept North Carolina right in the game until nearly halfway through the third period, the Cardinals overpowered the Tar Heels. Louisville produced 17 points off offensive rebounds compared to North Carolina’s four, as well as Louisville’s 26 points off the bench compared to UNC’s six.

In a game that had four ties and four lead changes, Watts led North Carolina with 16 points. In addition, Hillary Summers, a redshirt junior forward, produced her sixth double-double of the season with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Freshman guard Destinee Walker added 12 points.

Summers, who is admittedly playing through some knee pain, said her improved play this season has stemmed from her inspiration to be more of a leader to her teammates.

“I’m doing just anything I can to help my team out. They’re really good at passing me the ball and then we’re learning the plays better and learning how to really work the offense, so I’m just doing what I can to help us win.”

Hatchell said while her athletes are building endurance with each game played, it is a difficult challenge to balance her rotation with such a short bench. With senior Xylina McDaniel out for the season due to injury, only six players got in on the action.

“Sometimes whenever a player makes a mistake and I want to take them out to talk to them I’m ‘OK, who am I going to substitute? Or am I going to call a timeout? Or am I going to try, when we have a dead ball, try to say something to them?’ It’s definitely different.”

Watts said early excitement about a lead eventually turned to disappointment with the game’s eventual turnaround. North Carolina entered halftime with a 32-28 lead, but ended the third period down 63-52.

“I think us just having a little bit of a lead in the first half, we were pumped up, fired up, ready to go, but once they took the lead they had a little bit of a momentum shift and that got us down a little bit. We just weren’t able to recover from it.”

Louisville was led by freshmen – Mariya Moore’s 22 points was the game-high, followed by Asia Durr’s 21 points.

“I felt like they went hard the whole time they were out there. I was really focused on my team and getting us back in the groove, rather than what they were doing,” Moore said.

Next up for UNC is a Sunday matinee at Boston College at 1 p.m. The game will mark Coach Hatchell’s second suspension. Despite the rough times that come along with a losing streak, Hatchell said the team will have plenty to fight for during their matchup with Eagles.

“I told them in the locker room, you have three things on Sunday. First of all, Xylina, because of her surgery was today. Play for ‘Z’ because she won’t be there. I won’t be there. Also, they’re going to play for [assistant coach] Sylvia Crawley because she was the head coach at Boston College. I’ll put Coach Crawley in charge of making sure they are fired up and ready to play up there because that’ll be a pride factor.”

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