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The Tar Heels were on life support but lived to play another day.
After a historically bad first half that may have caused some damage in living rooms and bars across the country, Carolina responded to a verbal assault at halftime and rallied to beat the 14th-place team in the ACC for their third road win of a so-far disappointing season. “It was straightforward and loud,” Hubert Davis said after the 63-59 win. “And it was every coach.”
The first half hapless Heels had come out with similar energy as at Wake Forest two weeks ago, allowing Notre Dame to get hot and take a 27-19 lead after D’Marco Dunn’s apparent buzzer-beater was disallowed by the refs.
For the record, their 19 points was a low for a half this season and, get this, their five field goals were the fewest since 1980, 43 years ago. Fortunately it was an undeserved manageable deficit, and the coaches’ tantrum apparently spurred them to a 17-8 run to open the second half and go ahead.
But it remained nip and tuck for the last 13 minutes with no more than a three-point margin until Caleb Love swished his last two free throws to, as he said afterward, “seal the deal” for UNC’s 17th win overall and a 9-8 record that for the moment is good for 7th place in the ACC.
The mystery remains why a team on the brink of making mortifying history did not come out of the gate like rabid dogs. The offense started 0-for-11 from 3-point range and shot a dismal 19 percent without making a single assist, which is partly explainable since only five shots went in the basket while turning the ball over eight times. That turned into only one more giveaway.
The Tar Heels wound up dominating the boards, 52-33, with Armando Bacot, Pete Nance and Leaky Black combining for 32 of the caroms. Since the smaller Irish did not try to retrieve most of their own shots, the real statistic was Carolina’s 23-8 offensive rebounding advantage. That continued to keep the Heels in the game around the basket to offset a 2-for-23 record for 3-point shooting futility. Don’t bother going to your calculator; that is 8.7 percent, the lowest for any UNC team attempting at least 20 treys.
The resulting good news is that another NCAA tournament bid is still on the table if Davis’ team can string something together after winning only the second time in the last seven games, continuing Saturday night with a ranked Virginia team that will arrive wounded from its 15-point whipping at BC.
Carolina has to play much harder and better to beat the Cavaliers, but when the dust settled in South Bend, Bacot, Love and R.J. Davis made 17 of 36 shots, which will be needed versus UVa’s suffocating pack-line defense.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Maggie Hobson
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