Carolina almost needed a wing and a prayer to beat BC.
After turning to the Bible to calm and encourage his team coming off a bad two-game losing streak, Hubert Davis might have pulled out a verse about perseverance as his Tar Heels survived a different Boston College team than they had seen almost a month ago in Chestnut Hill in a 26-point romp up there.
The Eagles took the floor at the Smith Center in gray and white uniforms that said simply “The Heights” on their front jerseys, a nickname for their neighborhood back home but also where they hoped to play most of this game. Winning the rebounding and in-the-paint battles were the only heights BC reached, slightly.
It was truly a game between two gangs that couldn’t shoot straight. Carolina’s field goal percentage (29.1) was the lowest for a win over its 112-year history, and the lowest in any game it has played in the last 25 seasons, also the first victory in the last 22 games in which UNC scored fewer than 60 points.
BC was even worse where it hurt the most, missing 15 of 16 three-point bricks and going 0-for-11 from the floor to end a game that had been close most of the way. The Tar Heels shot about their average from the arc, going 6-of-17 for a 15-point advantage plus making 14 more free throws that essentially covered the final 58-47 spread.
The small-but-loud crowd at the Dean Dome stayed anxiously engaged most of the way because both teams played hard but were equally inept, as coaches say, at “scoring the ball.”
Armando Bacot got double-figure rebounds for the 11th consecutive game and would have kept his double-double streak alive had he made just two more shots in his 1-for-10 night, the second straight game he failed to finish around the rim. AB led the ACC in field-goal percentage just two weeks ago but has fallen to second in the league (at .578) behind Wake Forest’s Jake LaRavia.
The Heels, still without Dawson Garcia, used their starters for all but 21 minutes, the bench producing 8 points that included Kerwin Walton’s first three free throws of the season and Puff Johnson’s second basket in five games.
Leaky Black was their best all-around player, as the senior wing that Hubert needed made his first and only 3-point attempt, scored 8 points, had 5 assists, blocked 3 shots with no turnovers. Whereas all five starters were in double figures in the win over Virginia Tech, only Caleb Love (16) and RJ Davis (13) got there this time.
Carolina ends the three-game homestand Saturday afternoon against N.C. State, which lost a close game at Notre Dame and fell to 3-7 in the ACC (10-11), but comes to Chapel Hill with better athletes than either the Hokies or the Eagles. So Hubert and the Heels will have to pray the lid comes off the basket against the Wolfpack.
Photo via Todd Melet.
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