The high of a week featuring wins over No. 24 Michigan and Georgia Tech gave way to a sleepy effort Saturday night in the Smith Center, but one which ended the same way as the previous two: another Carolina victory.
The Tar Heels overcame a slow start and some sluggish offense against Elon to take the team’s fourth consecutive win, an 80-63 final. Carolina hadn’t won four games in a row since the 2019-20 season.
𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐒 𝐖𝐈𝐍!#CarolinaFamily | @WellsFargo pic.twitter.com/8ZUskfMwr4
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) December 12, 2021
Sophomore guard Caleb Love once again showed his complete offensive game, netting 22 points for the fourth time this season and draining four three-pointers.
“It’s just my confidence level,” Love said when asked what fueled his performance. “This offseason, I wanted to make it an emphasis that I turn that switch, and worked on that throughout the whole summer. As soon as the season ended, I just went into work mode… I worked my butt off.”
Despite running into foul trouble in the first half, junior forward Armando Bacot still stuffed the stat sheet in the second, scoring nine points, grabbing six rebounds and swiping a career-best four steals in the final 20 minutes. His steals were part of a concerted effort in thievery by the UNC defense all night, which grabbed a season-high 12 from the Phoenix. Many of those steals resulted in fast break opportunities, from which Carolina scored 19 of its 80 points.
The Tar Heels’ highlight of the night came on one such fast break, when Love intercepted a Phoenix pass and took it all the way for a titanic windmill dunk.
“I felt it,” Love said of the play. “My legs was feeling good. I wanted to show some athleticism!”
Carolina also got plenty of offense from the charity stripe. After taking just 11 free throws combined in the Michigan and Georgia Tech games, the Tar Heels made a living at the foul line Saturday night, shooting a season-high 35 and making 27 of them. The team’s season free throw percentage now sits at 75 percent.
The rest of UNC’s offense wasn’t quite as efficient, as the Tar Heels shot just 10-34 (29.4 percent) in the first half, leading by only eight points at halftime. They finished with a season-low field goal percentage of 38.9.
“It was just a dirty game, and we had to just grind it out,” said sophomore forward Dawson Garcia, who finished tied with Love for the team lead with 22 points. “And that’s OK. We can win ugly, too.”
Garcia’s head coach didn’t take quite as positive a view on things, though he did express satisfaction with being able to win a “dirty game.”
“The execution on the offensive end was very frustrating,” Hubert Davis said. “For us, we pride ourselves on sharing the basketball and taking care of the basketball. And for us to only have 11 assists and for us to have 16 turnovers… that was disappointing on the offensive end. But I thought defensively, we played pretty well.”
Though the offense clearly left much to be desired for Davis, the first-year head coach still took time to laud Love, who is now averaging just shy of 17 points per game through nine games. Love averaged 10.5 points per game last season.
“I think this year… he’s taking better shots,” Davis said. “You can practice all you want, but if you take bad shots, they’re still not gonna go in consistently. I think that’s the biggest thing for Caleb.”
With the rust now firmly shaken off after the team’s break for final exams, Carolina will make a quick turnaround as Furman visits the Smith Center Tuesday night. The Paladins already have a road win against an ACC foe this season, having knocked off Louisville in November. After that, a showdown with No. 4 UCLA in Las Vegas awaits.
Featured image via Todd Melet. For a photo gallery of the game, click here.
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