It was more than a touch of the old days at the Smith Center.

Before a boisterous and highly appreciative crowd, Carolina advanced what could become a late-season surge into the NCAA tournament with another hard-fought and hard-earned victory over rugged Louisville.

The Tar Heels weren’t great for most of the game, but they made enough big-time plays on both ends of the court and, with the outcome on the line, produced some of their best basketball of late.

They kept the big and athletic Cardinals out of the paint, where Louisville was eating their lunch earlier. Over the last three-plus minutes, Carolina shut them out and sealed its 20th win of an erratic season and held on to 3rd place in the ACC.

Just as in Blacksburg Saturday afternoon, the Heels toughed it out this time over an opponent that kept the game virtually statistically even except for having 23 points off the bench compared to 2 for UNC. That should have resulted in fatigue for the home team, which fought it off for the 70-63 win.

Hubert Davis is down to basically a five-man rotation, stealing minutes from the starters with short subs Puff Johnson, Dontrez Styles and Kerwin Walton. The “iron five” again did it behind Armando Bacot’s 21st double-double of the season, Brady Manek’s timely shooting, and all-around wings Leaky Black and R.J. Davis defending their buns off and adding big buckets.

With his increasing maturity apparent over 40 grueling minutes, Caleb Love stopped turning the ball over and scored Carolina’s last four points while the ’Ville was stuck on 63. Besides the 7 turnovers, Love also had 5 assists, 2 steals and a blocked shot to go with his 16 points.

Black’s driving dunk and corner 3-ball on consecutive possessions gave the Tar Heels some early life in the second half. From there, they never trailed by more than two points and took the lead for good on an old-fashioned three-point play by Love and stretched it behind the passing and scoring of Manek, whom Coach Davis later declared an official “dude.”

With four starters in double figures in a better-played game than at Virginia Tech, Davis can rest his pooped troops until they visit N.C. State Saturday and Black’s Senior Night against Syracuse the following Monday.

Both of those games are still must-wins to avoid big drama on Selection Sunday, no matter what happens at Duke on March 5. With three games plus the ACC tournament left, Carolina has already bettered the records of Ol’ Roy’s last two teams. Not too bad for a rookie head coach.

 

Featured image via Todd Melet. For a complete photo gallery of the game, click here.

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