UNC women’s basketball falls to No. 1 South Carolina in NCAA tournament Sweet 16

Deja Kelly didn’t quit. The sophomore guard for the fifth-seeded North Carolina Tar Heels never backed down from South Carolina, the No. 1 overall seed in the women’s NCAA Tournament.

Kelly drove to the basket, pulled up from mid-range, shook off defenders with her silky handles, and defended hard. Her effort was admirable and impressive, but in the end, it alone was not enough to keep the Tar Heels’ postseason going.

Despite Kelly’s 23 points, North Carolina fell in the Sweet 16 in the Greensboro Coliseum on Friday, losing 69-61 to South Carolina in front of an announced crowd of 8,811 fans.

“I asked these guys to give me both their head and their heart all year long, and that’s what they did,” third-year UNC coach Courtney Banghart said. “Deja is just fearless… Her poise — this is a bunch of sophomores running around, and that takes an enormous amount of poise and toughness. Deja was big all tournament.”

Kelly also had five rebounds, three assists and two steals, while Alexandra Zelaya added 10 points for the Tar Heels (25-7).

Aliyah Boston led South Carolina with 28 points and a season-high 22 rebounds. Zia Cooke had 15 points and Destanni Henderson had 13 to push the Gamecocks (32-2) into the Elite Eight for the second straight season.

“That was a tough game. Hats off to North Carolina for playing an extremely efficient basketball game. They never gave up no matter how big or small the lead was, and they deserved to be here, and they pushed us to the limit,” Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said. “I thought Deja Kelly did a great job at just putting us back on our heels and scoring.”

Here’s what we learned from UNC’s first Sweet 16 appearance since 2015:

UNC CONCEDED SOME 3’S

It was apparent from the first play of the game that North Carolina was going to have to do something creative to stop Boston. South Carolina won the opening tip, and then its 6-foot-5 All-American center bulldozed her way into the paint to score the game’s opening points on a lay-up, knocking Carlie Littlefield to the floor in the process.

North Carolina did not possess the skill or size in the post to guard Boston one-on-one, and attempting to do so would’ve been a fool’s errand. Several teams learned that lesson the hard way this season as Boston has racked up 28 double-doubles to lead the nation. And North Carolina doesn’t have any active players over 6-foot-3.

So, the Heels made the assignment of stifling Boston an objective for the entire team early on. When she got the ball in the paint, UNC collapsed on her. When it seemed like a South Carolina teammate was about to pass her the ball, the Heels did their best to try and cut those off.

“Our initial game-plan in the beginning was to really crowd the paint, really limit the bigs’ touches,” Kelly said.

But committing multiple players to smothering Boston meant that UNC wouldn’t have as many defenders along the perimeter. Considering that South Carolina is typically a middling squad when it comes to shooting 3-pointers — making 30.5% this season, which is 184th best in the nation — that seemed like a sensible gamble for the Tar Heels to take. Especially since South Carolina made less than 23% of its shots from behind the arc in its pair of wins last weekend.

The plan didn’t really work though, because South Carolina made more of those open 3-pointers than the Heels expected. South Carolina made 6 of 11 shots from behind the arc in the first half.

When that started happening, the Heels had to adjust, which gave South Carolina largely free reign on the offensive glass. The Gamecocks had 25 offensive boards to UNC’s seven, and South Carolina had a 26-6 advantage in second-chance points.

“I think once (UNC) saw we started to hit a few 3’s, they started to come up on us,” Cooke said. “And then we were able to bring Aliyah some good buckets.”

Added Kelly: “The (South Carolina) guards kind of started going on their own little run. They were hitting outside shots, jumpers – which is something we were going to make them do, and they did. So then we had to adjust on the ball screens. The ball screens were getting set lower and lower, but we couldn’t help too much, obviously, because they had the big post presence inside.”

That was largely the difference of the game. Had the Gamecocks kept misfiring from long range like they did in the first two rounds of the tournament, the Heels could’ve kept double- and triple-teaming Boston, and would’ve been in a better position for a victory.

Boston still got hers, notching the first game of her career in which she had more than 20 points and 20 rebounds.

“She’s just a premier player. She’s generational in that way with how her body has transformed. She’s powerful and strong. She kind of has dancer footwork. She’s relentless,” Banghart said of Boston. “I wish she was old enough to go pro. I would be sitting in the front row celebrating her to be drafted because I think I’ve seen enough. I had one chance, and I’ve seen enough of Aliyah Boston, but mad respect for her. Just a really good kid too.”

USC’s DEFENSE ARRIVES

The Tar Heels led by a point after ending the first quarter on a 6-1 run. The Heels shot a sterling 55.6% from the floor in the first period, while holding the Gamecocks to 33.3%. The 23 points UNC scored in the first quarter was the most South Carolina had allowed in the opening 10 minutes of a game all season.

And then, the script flipped.

South Carolina — the nation’s leader in field goal defense, allowing opponents to shoot just 32.2% per-game — finally started clicking on the defensive side of the court.

UNC missed its first six shots from the floor in the second quarter and finished it shooting just 1 of 9 for an 11.1% clip. The Tar Heels also had four turnovers in the second, which the Gamecocks turned into 12 points.

In all, South Carolina outscored North Carolina 17-8 in the second quarter, and took an eight-point lead into halftime. South Carolina led by as many as 13 points in the second half before UNC trimmed the deficit down to four points with 2:02 to play in the fourth quarter.

“I just feel like we did what we’ve been doing all year, just hanging around with teams. They throw a punch. We threw one back,” said Littlefield, who had nine points. “I just think this group is really relentless, and I think we showed that tonight too just by hanging around.”

TAR HEELS WILL BE BACK

In the league’s annual preseason polls, North Carolina was picked to finish seventh in the ACC by both the head coaches and the media. When the dust settled, a UNC team that starts four sophomores finished fourth in the ACC in the regular season, and was one of four ACC teams to advance to the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend.

The Tar Heels overachieved this season. Few expected them to make it this far. Along the way, they notched a surprise statement victory over Louisville, swept Duke in the regular season, and then beat last year’s national champion runners-up — Arizona — on its home floor in Tucson.

“It’s huge. This is a big stage. I told them that you get here because of how you handle your business along the way,” Banghart said. “It’s really hard to make a Sweet 16 even when you are awesome. You can ask all the awesome teams that aren’t in it, right? Being here, it just makes you even more hungry. It gives you more experience. Experience is, as we all know in life, really important.”

But next year, a Sweet 16 appearance will be expected of them. That’s because the Tar Heels are expected to return nearly every key player from this roster; the only regular rotation player in question is starting point guard Littlefield. UNC is petitioning the NCAA for a waiver to get Littlefield — a transfer from Princeton — an extra year of eligibility, because the Ivy League didn’t play in the 2020-21 season.

In addition to all the expected returners, UNC will also add a pair of former ESPN Top 20 recruits — Teonni Key and Kayla McPherson — who redshirted this season to rehab injuries. Key, a graduate of Cary High School, is 6-foot-4 and should give the Tar Heels a sizable and talented presence on the wing and in the post. The Heels will also add incoming freshman Paulina Paris, a guard tabbed as the 27th-best recruit in the nation by ESPN.

While Friday’s loss was the end of North Carolina’s 2021-22 season, it’s just the beginning for this group of Tar Heels.

This story was originally published March 25, 2022 at 9:29 PM.