UNC beats NC State at home, completing the season sweep
There’s something about N.C. State that makes North Carolina’s players confident. That no matter how much the Tar Heels have struggled, and they’ve certainly struggled this year, they always have a chance against the Wolfpack.
It happened last month in Raleigh when the Tar Heels were without their leading scorer, Cole Anthony, and won 75-65.
And it happened again, as the Tar Heels were on a seven-game losing streak. The Wolfpack were only two games removed from a 22-point victory over then-No. 6 Duke.
But the Tar Heels were the better team and used a big second-half run to propel them to a 85-79 win.
“I told my guys after the game, we played extremely hard tonight,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said after the game. “Unfortunate thing was, we came up on the short end of the stick. Give Carolina credit, I thought they finished the game much better than we did.”
UNC coach Roy Williams is now 37-4 against N.C. State all time, which includes a 5-0 record when he was head coach at Kansas. When asked what gets him fired up against N.C. State, Williams said he didn’t know.
“If I did guys, we’d be 37-4 against everybody else,” he said.
Junior forward Garrison Brooks, who missed UNC’s game against Louisville on Saturday because he was sick, returned and led the Tar Heels with 30 points and 9 rebounds. Graduate senior Christian Keeling had a season-high 16 points and 7 rebounds. He was 7 of 9 from the floor.
N.C. State senior point guard Markell Johnson had 21 points and 10 assists. D.J. Funderburk had 18 points and 9 rebounds..
N.C. State (17-11, 8-9 ACC) needed a win against UNC (11-17, 4-13) to keep its NCAA tournament hopes alive. The Wolfpack is considered a bubble team by bracket experts, and possibly one of the last four teams to get in the tournament (ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had the Wolfpack as THE last team in on his bracketology this week). But the loss to UNC makes its case a lot tougher.
It was UNC’s first win since Jan. 27, the last time the Tar Heels beat the Wolfpack.
“Yeah, I’m happy for myself, and all that kind of junk, too, but I was really happy for them,” Williams said of his players getting the win.
The Tar Heels led by as many 11 points in the second half. In previous games, they had given up double-digit second-half leads. On Tuesday it looked like that might happen again. N.C. State cut the lead to three points with two minutes left.
But the Tar Heels eventually closed this one out, hitting crucial free throws down the stretch. The Wolfpack never got closer than 3 points.
The Wolfpack started fast, making 5 of its first 6 shots, and taking a 13-2 lead after the first four minutes. The Tar Heels turned it over five times in that stretch.
But the Wolfpack had some turnover issues of its own. The Tar Heels answered with an 8-0 run to trim it to a 3-point lead.
For the rest of the half, the two teams battled back and forth, until the Tar Heels finally took the lead. They went into halftime up 40-37.
But as has been the case for most of this season, the Tar Heels went cold for a large stretch of the second half. And its opponent, this time N.C. State, took advantage.
Johnson started to get hot, and the Wolfpack started the second half on a 15-5 run to take a 7-point lead with 14:45 left.
The Tar Heels answered back with a 22-4 run, taking a 67-56 lead after Brooks made an “and-one” layup with 8:33 remaining.
The Tar Heels never trailed after that.
Personal foul
Neither team was particularly careful with the basketball, and both made questionable passes. The two teams combined for 17 turnovers in the first half. UNC had 9 turnovers, N.C. State had 8.
And one
UNC: The Tar Heels dominated on the offensive glass, which allowed them to get second chance points.
N.C. State: The Wolfpack, which trailed by 10, cut the lead to 3 points, and had a chance to cut it to one point.
In case you missed it
UNC senior guard Brandon Robinson re-injured his right ankle in the first half. He came out of the game late in the first half, but returned after halftime.
Making sense of the numbers
87.5: Brooks’ free throw percentage. There was one time this season where he missed 15 straight at home. He was 14 of 16 on Tuesday. He made all 11 of his second-half free throws, including six in the final minute.
23: The Wolfpack’s points off turnovers.
This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 11:16 PM with the headline "UNC beats NC State at home, completing the season sweep."
