The No. 24 UNC women’s basketball team avoided a letdown after an emotional win against No. 3 Louisville, going on the road and defeating Florida State in Tallahassee Sunday afternoon. Carolina had lost its previous six games against the Seminoles.
Final from Tallahassee ⤵️ 👏👏👏#GoHeels x @WellsFargo pic.twitter.com/rXBUyy6K5U
— Carolina Women's Basketball (@uncwbb) February 20, 2022
“My guys showed so much fight, and so much grit, and just so much connection,” said head coach Courtney Banghart. “So, it was one of our better wins, although it was one of the harder ones to watch at times.”
To Banghart’s point, the two teams combined to shoot just 20-59 (33.9 percent) from the field in the first half. Carolina held a slim 25-22 edge at halftime, though only four players had scored, compared to six for the Seminoles. Fourteen of UNC’s 25 came from the hot hand of sophomore guard Deja Kelly. Kelly played all 20 minutes in the first half and shot an efficient 6-10 from the floor. Outside of her, though, Carolina was just 5-21 in the opening half.
Kelly quieted down in the third quarter, and sophomore forward Alyssa Ustby stepped up in her place. Ustby scored the first four points of the period, and after a 7-0 run from the Seminoles gave Florida State a 35-33 lead with 2:10 to go, it was a three-pointer from Ustby which stopped the bleeding. Ustby’s basket kickstarted a 7-0 run to end the quarter from Carolina, which extended to 10-0 in the fourth when Kelly was fouled shooting a three and made each of her free throws.
“We like when Alyssa’s aggressive,” said Banghart. “She was a little slow offensively to start the game, and we’re not going through a 40-minute game without Alyssa on offense. It’s just not a thing.”
Kelly’s three foul shots re-ignited her scoring touch, which seemed to spread among the entire team. After the Seminoles cut the lead to one point with a 9-2 run (a Kelly layup being the only UNC score), the Tar Heels put together a clutch 16-3 run of their own over the next five minutes. Six players would score on the run, with a Carlie Littlefield jumper with 1:44 to go giving Carolina a 14-point lead and effectively sealing the win.
“Late into the fourth quarter, we had a lot of selfless basketball,” said Ustby, who finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds to secure her fifth double-double in her last six games. “Those little key plays helped pick up the pace of the game and pick up our overall mood on the bench.”
Kelly would add one more three-pointer for good measure with less than a minute to go, setting the final margin at 15 points and giving Kelly 26 for the game to go along with five assists. It was her highest offensive output since scoring a career-high 31 against Clemson in January.
“She’s a player that you can look at, and you trust her,” Ustby said. “And you trust the path that she’s leading this team [on].”
Overall, the Tar Heels outscored Florida State 24-14 in the final quarter. UNC shot 9-16 in the period and made eight of its final 10 shots. The defense, meanwhile, held the Seminoles to no more than 14 points in any quarter, just eight in the second, and allowed them to shoot just 37.5 percent from the floor, and 26.7 percent from downtown.
“We knew that it was going to be a battle,” Kelly said. “We knew that we had to bring every bit of energy that we had in order to win this game… once we got it going, that’s when we blew it away.”
Now 21-5 overall and 11-5 in ACC play, the Tar Heels kept alive their hopes for a valuable double-bye in March’s ACC Tournament. Carolina would need help to get there, needing to leapfrog either Notre Dame or Virginia Tech. All the Tar Heels can do, as Banghart likes to say, is “keep stacking wins.” Up next on the schedule is another road matchup, this time at Virginia on February 24. Carolina defeated the Cavaliers, 61-52, earlier this season in Chapel Hill. After that, UNC returns home for Senior Day against Duke next Sunday.
Featured image via Associated Press
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