UNC basketball holds on to beat Louisville. Tar Heels sweep ACC Cards for first time
North Carolina appears to be getting better in late-game situations after another close game with Louisville on Monday night. This time, the Tar Heels didn’t need overtime before emerging with a 70-63 victory, in a game that had seemingly everyone at the Dean E. Smith Center standing in the final minutes.
The game had nine ties and eight lead changes before sophomore guard Caleb Love’s layup with 37 seconds left gave the Tar Heels (20-8, 12-5 ACC) a 68-63 lead and their first two-possession lead in the game’s final three minutes.
When Carolina won 90-83 in overtime on Feb. 1 in Louisville, it scored just one basket in the final two minutes of regulation. And leading by two points with 17 seconds left, Love had the ball stolen from behind, which led to the game-tying basket. The Heels nearly squandered the game away before they regrouped in overtime.
Love said they’ve learned from close games like Louisville, Clemson and Saturday’s win at Virginia Tech.
“We definitely cleaned up a lot of stuff and I feel like we’re more solid in late-game situations,” Love said. “We’re not rattled at all. Down the stretch, we’re not worried about making mistakes or anything like that.”
The Heels limited U of L to just two made shots in the final seven minutes of the game.
UNC coach Hubert Davis said he believed they played their best defensively in the last three minutes of the game. He pointed out the ball pressure as the reason why the Heels were sharper defensively to close out the Cardinals.
“One of the things that I always say is, the ball is the problem, and if you just take care of the ball, everything else will take care of itself,” Davis said. “And so those last moments, those last three minutes, I thought we did an excellent job of defending on the ball and it allowed us to be in position to defend off the ball.”
UNC swept the Cards (12-13, 6-11) for the first time since they joined the ACC ahead of the 2014-15 season.
Durham native El Ellis, who scored a career-high 25 points for U of L in the first game in the series, managed only seven on Monday.
Here’s what we learned from the Heels’ win:
To sub or not to sub
Considering the game was a short turnaround from Carolina’s 65-57 win at Virginia Tech, it still relied primarily on the starting five to play big minutes.
That’s not a departure given all five starters played 38 or more minutes in their overtime win against the Cards. Reserves in the first meeting — Puff Johnson, Justin McKoy and Kerwin Walton — totaled a combined 21 minutes and were scoreless.
On Monday, Johnson, Walton and freshman Dontrez Styles accounted for a total of 20 minutes. Johnson’s two made free throws were the only points scored by any of the reserves.
While Carolina doesn’t need its bench to score in bunches, it does need to provide some relief for the starters, who are logging major minutes.
Love played 38 minutes against the Hokies on Saturday. He played the entire 40 minutes against the Cards and admitted his legs felt “heavy.” Love scored 16 points and had five assists, but also had six of his seven turnovers in the second half. That could partly be attributed to fatigue.
“When you’re tired you’re kind of not willing to do extra work to probably get a shot that we all want,” Love said. “That’s what I did, I kind of settled because I was tired.”
Carolina is down Dawson Garcia and Anthony Harris for the rest of the season, which obviously would improve its bench play. Hubert Davis said he was only concerned about the production from his bench.
“We didn’t have a lot of minutes coming off the bench, but the minutes that were played by Dontrez, Puff and Kerwin were very beneficial for us in order to have success and win,” Davis said.
Forgotten frontcourt?
UNC forward Brady Manek scored 24 points in the first game against Louisville and started off Monday night with 11 points in the first half. He made three of his first four shots from 3-point range.
But in the second half, Manek was largely missing offensively. He went for nearly six-minute stretches between his first, second and third shots. When it mattered, he asserted himself back in the mix.
Manek made a fadeaway jumper to give UNC a 64-60 lead. Then with the shot clock running down, he was on the receiving end of a R.J. Davis pass that he could have tried to layup. Instead, Manek made a dish to Armando Bacot for a dunk with 1:33 to put Carolina up 66-63.
Manek finished with a game-high 17 points.
Bacot had a similar disappearing act in the second half. The junior forward was 5-for-6 shooting in the first half with 10 points. He had only two shot attempts in the second half, including the dunk with 93 seconds left.
Bacot, who had 15 rebounds for his 21st double-double, said opponents have been putting an emphasis on defending him in the post and challenging Carolina’s guards to score.
“It’s more like teams just daring everybody else to score the ball and loading up the paint fronting me and having somebody over the backside,” Bacot said. “So I mean, they want to pick their poison. Last few games, the guards and Brady, they’ve been tremendous just scoring the ball. I mean teams they’re going to have to respect it or they’re going to die by it.”
Malik makes a difference
Louisville forward Malik Williams did not play against the Heels in the first meeting while he was suspended by the team. The Cardinals’ captain made a big difference in the lineup on Monday.
UNC only allowed U of L 24 points in the paint in its 90-83 overtime win on Feb. 1. With Williams leading the way, the Cards had 18 points in the paint in the first half against Carolina. And it wasn’t just from him scoring on the blocks.
Williams made a 3-pointer early on, forcing Bacot to respect his perimeter game and leave the paint to defend him. That opened up the lane for other U of L players to drive to the basket and score, sometimes without much resistance.
Williams finished with 10 points and the Cards outscored UNC 34-30 in the paint.
This story was originally published February 21, 2022 at 9:04 PM.