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Maybe the Tar Heels won’t be only pretty good, after all.
Carolina wouldn’t win a beauty pageant for its 70-57 win at Pitt Tuesday night, but all that is in the blue eyes of the beholder.
Beating a program that has been a house of horrors up there and down here in recent years was especially sweet because the Heels manhandled the Panthers in a basket-brawl they like to play.
But shooting under 40 percent overall and under 30 from the arc did not mean much compared to what they hadn’t done so well this season, now 10-3 with a bunch of high-quadrant wins that bolster their early NCAA resume.
“Three phases,” a happy Hubert Davis said after his third UNC team moved to 2-0 in ACC play with its first true road game of the season despite missing its first 10 shots and failing to score before the first TV timeout.
He ticked off aggressive defense that held the Panthers to 31 percent shooting and a dismal 17 percent from the arc, including holding their leading scorer Blake Hinson to 11 points on 4-of-16 from the floor after coming in averaging 19.
While Pitt came in leading the ACC in rebounding with a 9-plus margin per game, Carolina had a 10-plus, led by a career-high 15 from cold-shooting Harrison Ingram (2 for 14) and 10 from Armando Bacot, whose scoring part of his 74th career double-double made him the seventh Tar Heel to eclipse 2,000 career points. They had 16 offensive rebounds from which they scored 15 second-chance points compared to Pitt’s 14 caroms off its own glass for 1 point.
And Hubert loved the aggressive defense that blew up Pitt’s ball screens and discombobulated the Panthers’ entire offense. Defense and rebounding are not as pretty as filling up the basket, and disrupting ball screens is far more subtle than spectacular.
The offense wasn’t as bad as the numbers indicated. R.J. Davis had 15 points to snap his eight-game streak of at least 20 and pass assistant coach Jeff Lebo as UNC’s 29th career scorer (1,578 points) and passed the head coach’s 199 three-pointers for ninth place.
The guys with lesser numbers also stood out. Seth Trimble, who is becoming a valuable third guard and sometimes sixth man, had his second straight game in double figures (10 points), playing key minutes when Elliot Cadeau picked up his third and fourth fouls early in the second half.
In short, there was something big for the eight men who played most of the minutes, including 18 bench points. Carolina is 7-0 this season when four or more players score in double figures.
The first of three straight road games continues at 16-ranked Clemson Saturday and 9-3 N.C. State next Wednesday. If the Heels keep winning U-G-L-Y, they don’t need no alibi.
Featured image via Associated Press/Matt Freed
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