It felt like Carolina Basketball was back after a long absence.

With the largest home crowd of the season against the biggest opponent, the Tar Heels played a spectacular second half to run away from No. 24 Michigan and boost their resume with a quality 72-51 win.

The near-full Smith Center, which had at least five UNC former ACC Players of the Year on hand, was rocking like its pre-COVID days. The effort was there to start the game, if full execution wasn’t. Leading by two at the break on Caleb Love’s second of four long balls, Carolina fired on all pistons in the second half.

The Heels made 18 of 31 shots, and by the time the outcome was decided Love was playing his own game of HORSE, moving back to try to make his fifth 3-pointer from 30 feet. The crowd roared with delight when the ball almost went in. Kind of fun at the Dean Dome.

Maybe the team needs 8 days between games more often, even though it will only happen one other time on the schedule ahead. Hubert Davis conducted rugged workouts, paying attention to fundamentals, and led some team-building off-court activities.

The defense was sharper from the opening tip, but the offense continued to struggle getting into cohesive sets and finding good shots. For example, the Tar Heels began the game with three fast breaks that should have been three layups but all came up empty.

By contrast, they never had three straight empty possessions in the second half and answered every Michigan score to build the game into a blowout, leading by 25 on Love’s last basket after Leaky Black’s 3rd assist and Brady Manek’s 5th rebound in only 21 minutes.

Then Davis went to his bench that he had kept short playing basically seven guys, as Armando Bacot could celebrate his fourth double-double of the season and his personally neutering Michigan star center Hunter Dickinson with his third and fourth fouls early in the second half while Bacot scored five straight points.

The Wolverines tried switching defenses but proved themselves scoring challenged, which is likely to keep them from repeating as Big Ten regular-season champions. Love led three Heels in double figures with 22 points and two had 9 while looking their balanced best so far.

Welcome home, guys!

 

Photo via Todd Melet.

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