Welcome back, Tar Heels!
A grateful and ecstatic capacity crowd at the Smith Center came out to cheer on a team in trouble with three straight losses and shrouded in controversy. The Tar Heels responded with what Hubert Davis called the “best game of the season” for his team and shooting star Caleb Love.
Carolina earned a much-need Quad 2 win over Clemson, which arrived tied for first in the ACC standings with Pitt and Miami and departed in fourth place with a 10-4 record. UNC is now 8-6 and deadlocked for seventh with Duke, which lost at Virginia on a controversial call the conference deemed incorrect upon further review.
Love, who had drawn negative attention after shooting inconsistently in losses to Pitt and Duke, drained six 3-pointers for 18 of his game-high 24 points in the exciting 91-71 win over the Tigers, the most points Carolina has scored in an ACC game this season that now stands 16-9 overall.
Clemson is well-coached by Brad Brownell and plays hard, but it is not particularly athletic. The Heels regained their speed, hops and pops with a large rebounding advantage most of the game and made 15 of 33 three-pointers, matching the most since the win over The Citadel back on December 13.
Perhaps with an eye toward 18th-ranked Miami, which plays here Monday at 7 in a quick turnaround, Davis used his bench for the most in a Power 5 game this season, and it responded with 25 points in 49 of the 200 minutes played.
However, the three top scorers were the bomb, combining for 59 points that included another double double by Armando Bacot (19 points and 11 boards) and won the battle against Clemson leading scorer P.J. Hall, who missed 7-plus minutes of the first half with three fouls. AB tallied 10 and 9 to go with Love’s 12 points on 3 of 4 shooting, all arc rainbows while driving enough to draw four fouls. UNC also made six free throws in the first half when only two were attempted by Clemson, the best foul-shooting team in the ACC (80 percent).
Another Tar Heel hero was Leaky Black, who had 7 points, 7 rebounds, a block and a steal while his best work was holding Clemson’s 16-pont scorer Hunter Tyson to one 3-point basket in 32 minutes. Black’s own trey closed the Tigers’ early lead to one point, assisted by sophomore D’Marco Dunn who had his earliest entrance of the season after 5 minutes, spelling R.J. Davis, who finished with 17 points, four 3-pointers and 3 assists.
Also coming off the bench early was Puff Johnson, substituting for the cold-shooting Pete Nance, and wound up playing 18 minutes that included 8 points, two corner 3-pointers, 3 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal. Not long after, Jalen Washington (4 points) gave Bacot his first breather of the Saturday matinee, and Coach Davis seemed to have settled on his nine-man rotation. Dunn (5 points, 3 assists) soon consummated this early show of depth by claiming a 50-50 ball and feeding it to Washington for a monstrous two-handed slam. Fellow freshman Seth Trimble completed the early substitution pattern to give the still dinged-up R.J. some rest during both halves.
UNC’s Puff Johnson guards Clemson’s Ian Schieffelin during the Tar Heels’ game against the Tigers on Saturday, February 11. Johnson contributed 8 points off the bench and drew praise for his play from Hubert Davis.
Ahead 42-33 at the break, Carolina’s lead grew from 13 on a corner Puff ball, and consecutive 3-pointers by Davis and two by Love and eventually to 25 before Hubert cleared his bench down the stretch of the almost must-win game. A lot of that came from an active defense, which limited Clemson to 22 points in the paint, equaling another ACC season-low for the Tar Heels.
Emphasis on sharing the ball better was evident early on when Love passed up wide-open shot to find Black, as the team assisted on 17 of 32 baskets (including on 10 on 15 of the made 3-pointers), and committed only 7 turnovers to match their lowest in the season.
Another noted discrepancy was that Clemson had zero fast-break points, while Carolina had 8 in transition and gained its biggest lead when Bacot stole the ball at the high post and pitched to Love, who returned it to AB for a dunk that just about brought down the house.
“I was emotional during and after the game because they were playing with a sense of joyfulness and you could see it the way they were playing,” Hubert Davis said afterward.
“And it wasn’t just when they made a play but when their teammates made a play they were just as, or almost more, excited and joyful,” the head coach added. “It’s always a beautiful trait when you can celebrate other people’s success. And that translated in how they shared the basketball with 17 assists and we were really good defensively. I wish we could bottle it up, but I told them to enjoy the day and tomorrow we’ll start our preparation for a really good Miami team.”
Before the game, there was a feeling around the UNC athletic department that the Tar Heels had to win 5 of the last 7 games to assure themselves a bid to the NCAA tournament and a decent seed like a No. 8, from where they advanced all the way to the national championship game last year. Now, that prediction has improved to 4 of the last 6.
Beating the ultra-fast and uber-athletic Hurricanes would be a major step to further lowering those odds. The U blew out the Heels last season in Coral Gables, continuing the erratic stretch that left Davis’ first team on the Big Dance bubble before the dramatic turnaround culminated with the upset at Duke.
With N.C. State on the road and home games with Virginia and Duke left to go this year, returning the favor on Miami would prove his second team is all the way back and ready for another late-season push. A loss, with the growling Wolfpack awaiting on Sunday, would mean being back on the bubble for the final fortnight.
After the demoralizing loss to Wake Forest Tuesday, Bacot said he told his teammates to either be ready to go on Thursday or “go home.”
“The team met several times since the Wake Forest game,” said Coach Davis, who had some unnamed players practice in weighted vests to show them how encumbered they were. “You can play with the weight of your family, friends and phones, but you can’t jump as high, run as fast or be as efficient.
“I wanted them to play free and they played free today,” he said, “The crowd was going crazy and they were having fun. I like to see them being supported and celebrated.”
Featured image via Todd Melet. For a full photo gallery of the game, click here.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines