UNC can’t close the gap and get marquee win in loss against Virginia basketball
Waiting for a run that never came, North Carolina suffered its seventh consecutive loss at No. 9 Virginia, 60-48, on Saturday in John Paul Jones Arena.
If the Tar Heels aren’t careful, they might also get caught waiting for that marquee victory that never comes, too.
Carolina (12-7, 7-5 ACC) dropped to 0-3 this season against ranked teams. Virginia (15-3, 11-1), which was listed as a No. 3 seed in the NCAA’s first tournament reveal on Saturday, was another lost opportunity for a Quad I victory in the NCAA’s NET rankings.
Carolina is currently 0-5 against Quad I teams, although road wins at Pittsburgh and Duke could end up falling in that category. That leaves the Heels’ potential tournament resume awfully thin. And with five games left on the schedule, only Florida State on Feb. 27 and at Syracuse on March 1 would currently be considered Quad I opponents.
“We know where we are as a team and where we want to get to and, obviously, we’re not there yet,” UNC redshirt freshman guard Anthony Harris said. “So we make a big point in just getting better every practice trying to do everything we can that makes the end of the season better for us.”
Their running out of time to get better. The league announced prior to their tip against the Cavaliers that Tuesday’s game against Virginia Tech will be postponed, due to a positive test within the Hokies’ program.
Unless the ACC can shuffle the schedule to get the Heels a weekday opponent, it will have another week off before facing Louisville at home next Saturday. That will make the second time this month and the third time this season UNC has been hit with a delay that long between games.
“That’s frustrating, obviously, like after a loss you want to be ready to make a turnaround and come out with a W,” UNC freshman guard R.J. Davis said. “But it’s the world we live in today. It’s our new normal, so you got to face it and prepare for our next game — whenever that is.”
The week off between its win at Duke and playing UVA was the Tar Heels’ own doing. Monday’s game against Miami was postponed after UNC players and team managers attended a social gathering maskless.
UNC proved Saturday it doesn’t need any more games off.
The Heels never got into much of an offensive rhythm against the Cavaliers. They fell behind 21-4 at the start, making just 2-of-16 shots in the first 10 minutes of the game. And were held to a season-low 18 points in the first half. That matched the lowest output for a half in coach Roy Williams’ tenure in Chapel Hill.
“You got to be able to make shots to have some success against them,” Williams said. “If you’re not making shots, it’s a long, long night.”
UNC shot the ball better in the second half. And when it trimmed a 15-point deficit down to 44-35, it had a chance to pull within two possessions. But Kerwin Walton had the ball stripped away by Reece Beekman and on the ensuing possession Caleb Love threw the ball away. The Heels trailed by double digits for all but 30 seconds the remaining nine minutes of the game.
The Heels held UVA to just 39.6 percent shooting from the field. But center Jay Huff, who had 18 points and 12 rebounds, and forward Sam Hauser, who had 17 points, combined to shoot 7-for-11 from 3-point range. UNC’s bigs had trouble staying with the duo on the perimeter.
“We did a very poor job of that,” said Williams, who blamed a break down in communication on defense. “It’s hard to simulate that in practice. We don’t have a 4 or 5 man on the Blue team that can go out there and make all those shots like they did.”
It was the seventh consecutive loss in the series for the Tar Heels, which is the longest since losing eight in a row when it first began in 1911. The Cavaliers now focus on Monday’s showdown with Florida State for first place in the conference.
UNC was led by a career-high nine points from reserve Walker Kessler off the bench. Walton added eight points for the Heels. Love, who was the ACC’s freshman of the week after scoring 25 points at Duke, was limited to just four points.
The last time UNC did not have a player score in double figures was March 4, 1966, when John Yokley scored a team-high six points in a 21-20 loss to Duke in the ACC Tournament in Raleigh.
This story was originally published February 13, 2021 at 5:12 PM.