No. 18 Alabama Outlasts UNC Men's Basketball in Four-Overtime Marathon

In a game that truly defies explanation, No. 18 Alabama outlasted No. 1 UNC in the third-place game of the Phil Knight Invitational in Oregon, winning 103-101 in four overtimes. It’s the longest game for the UNC men’s basketball program since 1976.

The loss in Carolina’s second straight in Oregon and drops them to 5-2 on the season. It also marks the second consecutive game in which the Tar Heels let a late lead slip through their fingers. After trailing by three points at halftime, UNC led by as many as eight points in the second half and six points in the third overtime, but were never able to put the Crimson Tide away.

Alabama got much of its offense from the hot shooting of guard Mark Sears, who finished with 24 points on 7-11 shooting from three-point range. As a team, Alabama shot 16-38 from downtown. Carolina shot just 7-23 on its threes.

UNC got a career-high 34 points from junior guard Caleb Love, though Love shot an inefficient 13-36 from the floor. His backcourt-mate R.J. Davis wasn’t much better, scoring 19 points but shooting just 8-24, including a miss on a three-pointer as time expired in overtime No. 4.

Senior center Armando Bacot posted yet another double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds while battling foul trouble, but checked out of the game in the second overtime and never came back in. Graduate forward Pete Nance, himself saddled with four fouls, played the rest of the game in Bacot’s place.

UNC had several opportunities to win the game, including a pair of Caleb Love shots at the buzzer in overtimes one and three. Love appeared to give Carolina a 103-102 lead with seconds to go in the fourth overtime, as his floater was swatted away by an Alabama player and goaltending was called. But after an extensive video review, officials reversed the goaltending call and declared the play dead due to an inadvertent whistle. Because the ball was not in either team’s possession at the time of the whistle, officials deferred to the possession arrow, which favored Alabama.

Carolina forced a turnover on the ensuing inbounds pass, but then turned the ball right back over on the next inbounds pass as Nance threw the ball straight to the Crimson Tide. The night wasn’t the best showing for Nance, who finished with just four points and committed five turnovers.

After Alabama split its free throws to make the score 103-101, Davis sprinted down the court and heaved a desperation three which missed at the buzzer. The long national nightmare was over.

Incredibly, despite the game’s historic length, no player from either side fouled out. Four Tar Heels and three members of the Crimson Tide each finished with four fouls. The teams combined to take 181 shots, though neither was very efficient: UNC shot 41.8 percent, Alabama 41.1. The game was tied 15 separate times and the lead changed hands 14 times.

The loss is Carolina’s first in an overtime game since the 2019-20 season and snaps a three-game winning streak in overtime games for the program, all of which came last season. UNC hadn’t played a game as long as even three overtimes since the 2003-04 campaign, the first of head coach Roy Williams’ tenure in Chapel Hill.

Now humbled in Portland, Carolina still has two tough road trips ahead of it: the first sends the team to Bloomington to visit undefeated Indiana in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, while the next sends them to Blacksburg to face off which defending ACC Tournament champions Virginia Tech. Only after that will Carolina be able to return home on December 10 to face Georgia Tech.

Featured image via Carolina Basketball on Twitter

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No. 18 Alabama Outlasts UNC Men’s Basketball in Four-Overtime Marathon

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