In its first meeting with SMU as a conference foe, Carolina never trailed against the Mustangs and rolled to an 82-67 win at the Smith Center on Tuesday night.

R.J. Davis led the way with 26 points, the last three of which came on a fadeaway three-pointer to beat the shot clock late in the second half. But the night wouldn’t end well for Davis, as the reigning ACC Player of the Year took a blow to the face in the final minutes and left the game bleeding from his nose.

“His head kind of faceplanted into my nose,” Davis, no worse for wear, said afterward. “I have a sensitive nose, so I bleed a lot.”

R.J. Davis holds his nose after taking a blow to the face against SMU at the Smith Center. (Image via Todd Melet)

Ian Jackson added 18 points and Drake Powell scored 17. Seth Trimble returned to action after missing the previous three games with an upper-body injury but did not score.

Against the ACC’s top scoring offense, the Tar Heel defense held SMU to just 24 points in the first half and a season-worst shooting performance for the game: 23-69 (33.3 percent). The Mustangs entered the night as the league’s top three-point shooting team, but ended 4-18 (22.2 percent, 16 points below their season average and also a season-worst) in that category. Leading scorer Kevin “Boopie” Miller, a transfer from Wake Forest, ended the night 3-15 from the field with just nine points. UNC blocked seven SMU shots and recorded eight steals.

“In order for us to be the best that we can be, it has to be all parts working together,” said head coach Hubert Davis. “And I felt like, especially in the first half defensively, we were able to do that.”

“I’m really proud of our defense,” said R.J. Davis. “Overall, our communication on the defensive end was great. And that allowed us to go up big in the first and second half… we’re gonna need more of that moving forward.”

Buoyed by the defense, Carolina led 39-24 at halftime and expanded that edge to as large as 63-38 midway through the second half. The Mustangs got as close as 66-52 with 6:05 to go, but the ensuing sequence saw Powell make a three-pointer and SMU’s bench assessed a technical foul. Davis made both free throws after the foul, and SMU wouldn’t get closer than 15 points until the final two minutes.

SMU came into the game as the ACC’s top rebounding team, but Carolina controlled the glass in the first half, outrebounding the Mustangs 25-19. The Mustangs ended the night with a slight rebounding edge (41-39), marking the third consecutive game in which the Tar Heels have been outrebounded.

Tuesday night’s game was UNC’s fourth overall meeting with the Mustangs and first since 1987. The Tar Heels have now won three of the four matchups.

With the win, Carolina improves to 10-6 overall and 3-1 in ACC play. The Tar Heels will be back in action when they visit NC State in Raleigh on Saturday at 4 p.m.

 

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

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