You want an old-fashioned Carolina basketball game; the kind Hubert Davis watched his Uncle Walter play when he was a kid and the kind HE played in for the Tar Heels a dozen seasons later?
The team ranked third in certain polls walked into the Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, where various UNC iterations had beaten Boston College four straight times over the years. This time it was literally packed to the rafters to cheer on the improved Eagles capable of knocking UNC off its undefeated ACC perch.
Steve Kirschner, the veteran media director, had an apt comparison before the 2:15 tip-off Saturday: it looked and felt like Reynolds Coliseum in the old days.
It began like a backyard brawl, which is common in New England across contact sports at all levels. And it got rougher from there, with a total of 46 fouls called — 27 in the second half. And there were a lot more NOT called in the foul fest featuring 55 free throws.
This game might have been lost last season, when Carolina struggled to win on the road. Instead, the Tar Heels showed how much older (and tougher) they are in winning their fourth straight on rival courts that turned talk of the NCAA tournament bubble into regions and seeding.
The combination of growing confidence and competitive practices allowed Davis to use all 11 scholarship players on Saturday, the last three for a combined 12 minutes that got the Heels to halftime with a 34-31 lead and grew to the final 76-66. It marked UNC’s eighth straight win overall – all by at least 10 points and all, not coincidentally, with a decided rebounding advantage (43-28).
When Armando Bacot fell into foul trouble after not scoring a point or taking a shot, he sat down 11 minutes into the game and Davis finished the half with freshman Zayden High and junior James Okonkwo manning the middle.
Okonkwo, the transfer from West Virginia who has played mostly mop-up minutes, dunked a half-ending alley-oop pass from Elliot Cadeau.
That first half was more like a hockey game that BC used to play in the same building under the basketball floor: pushy and not pretty. Carolina’s first five fouls in the game were all on big men Bacot, Jae’Lyn Withers and Jalen Washington, which made Davis go deeper into his bench than usual.
“We played eleven men, and I can point out at least one play each one made that helped us win with a great effort,” Davis said after his team moved to 15-3 and 7-0 in the ACC, all while holding conference opponents to 70 points or fewer.
North Carolina forward Jae’Lyn Withers (24) dunks the ball during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Boston College Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)
The Heels can match the 2016 start of 8-0 against dangerous Wake Forest — which blew out the same Louisville team Carolina struggled with in their previous game — on Monday night at 7 p.m. in the Smith Center. It is the first of two 48-hour turnarounds (the second in February at Virginia, followed by Miami at home) that Davis can treat like every-other-day NCAA rounds.
With an early start and a team that is becoming a national story, the Dean Dome should be packed with almost three times as many fans as at BC. The Deacons are 5-2 in the ACC, tied for second with NC State and Florida State. A trip to Tallahassee comes Saturday January 27 and “you know who” is now 4-2, visiting the following Saturday after UNC’s trip to Georgia Tech to end the three-out-of-four stretch on the road for Carolina.
The 70-year-old combined age trio R.J. Davis (2-7), Cormac Ryan (0-4) and Harrison Ingram (1-3) were off from outside on Saturday, which helped the Eagles stay in it longer. But Withers and Seth Trimble went 5-of-7 from the floor and 3-for-4 from the foul line, where the Tar Heels made 14 of 15 in the second half. They continue as the sixth and seventh men, banging on the boards and pressing on the perimeter when Hubert keeps mixing up his defenses — another change from last year dictated by his revamped roster. Each also swished a 3-pointer in the first half to help out their foul-plagued team.
Ingram had his fourth double-double as a Tar Heel, a resourceful Swiss Army Knife who continues to emerge as the rudder that steadies the ship, helping the Heels win points in the paint and fast-break baskets. Does anyone think George Lynch?
“Harrison does so much for this team,” Coach Davis said of the Stanford junior transfer. “His versatility, his skills, he’s able to make plays on both ends of the floor, the guys feed off his energy. I can’t imagine not having him in the locker room or out there on the floor. He is so comfortable in a Carolina uniform. I’m so glad he’s here.”
Bacot came to life in the second half with an early three-point play that stretched the lead out to 9. He wound up missing another double-double by one rebound but added an assist, two blocks and a steal to his 27 total minutes. In his hot pink kicks, Bacot had his second “and one” late that gave Carolina its fifth eight-point lead while committing only two turnovers compared to 9 in the first half.
Of Ryan’s ten second-half points, six were free throws and two more were a slick baseline jumper after losing his man with a fake pass. Ingram had 9 of his 11 points after intermission, including a one-handed dunk off another Cadeau lob pass and his clutch 3-pointer.
The pass ➡️ The finish 😤 pic.twitter.com/2vIPPyYr4l
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) January 20, 2024
R.J. Davis, as usual, played the most minutes (35) and added six rebounds and four assists to his 16 points. He is so dad-gum good that he leads most straw polls for ACC Player of the Year. Even when he doesn’t shoot so well, he keeps the pedal to the metal up and down 94 feet. Against BC, Davis put the game away on a drive down memory lane off a spread formation that looked a little like Four Corners.
Old-timers will watch these Heels and remember Dean Smith’s smartest and toughest teams. They are showing a long-term massaging of trust and shared teamwork; definable roles for up to ten men and having the reserves find their moments that help tilt games in the right direction, all Smith traits and looking more like Dean’s players as the schedule unfolds.
As Smith said early in his Hall of Fame career, “We not trying to build a team, we’re building a program.”
Photo via AP Photo/Mark Stockwell.
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Agree 100% on the program building.
I had severe reservations about my own ability to see this team with all the transfers as “our” team, but I’m happy to say the players all seem to be naturally Tar Heels. It almost seems they have been her for longer.