UNC women’s basketball smothers Arizona to reach NCAA tournament Sweet 16

For a team that hadn’t been past the first round of the NCAA tournament in seven years and filled with younger players, the University of North Carolina certainly didn’t play like it.

The Heels shot out to an early lead, maintained their early pressure, extended their lead in the two subsequent quarters and survived a brief Arizona comeback attempt in the fourth to earn a 63-45 win over the host Wildcats at the McKale Center in Tuscon on Monday.

With the win, North Carolina (25-6) advances to its first Sweet 16 since 2015, and will do so in the Greensboro bracket, meaning its Sweet 16 and potential Elite 8 games will be played within shouting distance of the Heels’ home court in Chapel Hill.

“To say I’m really proud to be bringing a team to the Sweet 16 would be an understatement,” UNC coach Courtney Banghart said. “There’s been some roster reconstruction since I got the job, these guys trusted me enough to say, ‘Let’s do this.’

“It’s so hard to win in March, and we won not one, but two on the road,” she continued. “We sort of felt like we should be hosting, and there was only one thing to do was to prove it.”

In their opening-round win over Stephen F. Austin, five players found the sheet for the Heels — all in double figures — led by Deja Kelly with 28 on 8-for-8 shooting.

Monday’s win over Arizona was more like a track meet, albeit of a a physical sort, and the Carolina defense was on full display.

“One of our coaches said to build a wall,” Kennedy Todd-Williams said. “That’s exactly what we did. We only committed six fouls, but we played together, played with a lot of energy and that just showed in our transition to offense. We started rolling from there.”

The Heels’ offense was as balanced as ever, though Todd-Williams led the way, hitting for 19 points and dishing out five assists.

“(Todd-Williams) came out gunning from jump,” Kelly said. “ She was running the floor, she was defending, she was making steals, she was doing a little bit of everything, which is what we needed her to do. She was our X-factor tonight, and she is probably the biggest reason why we won this game.”

But the Heels’ true catalyst Monday was Alyssa Ustby, who the Wildcats may see jumping in their sleep. Ustby grabbed 12 rebounds to go with her 12 points on the night, but it felt like so many more because when she wasn’t grabbing those boards, she was in the area creating space for her teammates to do likewise. The Heels finished with a 40-34 advantage on the glass.

Ustby was also a pest on defense, getting a hand in the face of Arizona shooters all game long as Carolina used a high-pressure defense to force Arizona into rushed perimeter shots.

Carolina closes it out

With an 11-point lead at the half, North Carolina would have been happy to play the Wildcats evenly the rest of the way.

Instead, the Tar Heels put the hammer down.

Arizona closed to as close as seven points at 32-25 on a 3-pointer from Cate Reese with about 5:30 to play in the third, but the Heels allowed that to stand for all of one possession as Todd-Williams finished a quick transition with a triple of her own at the other end to re-extend the lead to 10 at 35-25.

The teams then traded buckets before the Heels closed out the third quarter on a 10-0 run, punctuated by an and-1, 3-point play from Deja Kelly at the horn, pushing the lead to 20.

“That was a huge momentum builder for us,” Kelly said. “I saw who was guarding me, and I just attacked. She bit, she kind of jumped at that first move, and then I crossed, went up, she fouled me, and it went in. Our little fan section went crazy, our bench went crazy, so that was definitely a momentum shifter for us.”

North Carolina added four more to its run to start the fourth before Arizona stopped the bleeding on a 3 from Helena Pueyo with 7:46 to play. Gisela Sanchez added another 3 for the ‘Cats, and Cate Reese and Sam Thomas scooped in a pair underneath to keep Arizona alive.

The Wildcats pulled to within 13 at their closest point in the final quarter, at 54-41, after a layup by Thomas, but UNC coasted home from there.

Tar Heels control first half

The opening half started as a back-and-forth affair, as many would expect from a 4-5 matchup in the Round of 32, and featured scorers from both teams finding their footing after uncharacteristic outings in the opening round.

Thomas, in a for-instance, was held to just two points in the Wildcats’ opening-round win, but splashed a 3-pointer just shy of four minutes into Monday’s action to level the game early at 6-6.

But that’s where the back-and-forth ended and the Heels took charge.

Ustby was an early catalyst for the Heels, draining four points and snagging a pair of rebounds out of the gate. but it was Todd-Williams who heated up at the right time to give North Carolina the lead at the first quarter break. Her up-and-under opened the scoring 30 seconds into the game. Her finish on a long feed from Ustby and subsequent long-range jumper from the left wing closed out the scoring in the first to push the UNC lead to 14-9.

The teams played the final two-plus minutes of the opening quarter scoreless. The Wildcats shot an abysmal 3-for-14 in that frame, hitting just one from inside the arc on seven tries. UNC was a respectable 7-for-18 from the floor, attempted just one 3-pointer and missed, and did not get to the line.

The Wildcats’ scoreless drought spanned the back half of the first quarter and beginning of the second, and climbed past 10 minutes as the teams reached the under-5 media timeout.

The Heels, however, did not stop. In fact, they kept pounding the ball inside, finally involving Anya Poole. The Raleigh native didn’t score in the Heels’ opening win over Stephen F. Austin, but forced her way onto the scoresheet in the second quarter Monday, burrowing inside and helping extend the North Carolina lead to 23-9 at its peak.

On defense, the Tar Heels were content to force Arizona to outside shots, and the Wildcats obliged by hoisting up — and missing — shot after shot while Ustby led the way on the glass for the Heels, collecting eight boards in the first half alone, eight of the 22 total North Carolina had before the break.

“North Carolina played well, they disrupted us,” Arizona coach Adia Barnes said. “They really congested the paint, didn’t allow us to drive, and we kind of lived and dies by the 3-point shot in the first half, and we couldn’t convert.”

The Wildcats came alive after a timeout with 4:08 to play in the half, and closed the second quarter by scoring almost as many points in those final four minutes (8) as they’d scored in the first 16.

The problem for them was, while the Heels cooled off a bit, it wasn’t nearly enough, thanks to some gritty play underneath from Ustby and Poole, the latter hitting for eight points in the first half to lead all scorers. Todd-Williams added seven in the first half.

This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 12:05 AM.

Justin Pelletier

The News & Observer

Justin is a 25-year veteran sports journalist with stops in Lewiston, Maine (Sun Journal), and Boston (Boston Herald). A proud husband, and father of twin girls, Pelletier is a Boston University graduate and member of the esteemed Jack Falla sportswriting mafia. He has earned dozens of state and national sportswriting and editing awards covering preps, colleges and professional leagues.