No. 1 UNC basketball falls to Iowa State in the Phil Knight Invitational semifinal
The experience that was supposed to help No. 1 North Carolina in tight games, even give it the edge, was no help at all in its 70-65 loss to Iowa State on Friday in the Phil Knight Invitational.
The Tar Heels (5-1) led by seven with 3:55 remaining, but seemed to lose their composure late and were outscored 17-5 to close out the game. The Heels will conclude the PKI against the loser of Connecticut and Alabama at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.
“We turned the ball over a couple of times and you just can’t do it in late game situations, you have to be sound and disciplined,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “And you have to do that on both ends of the floor. And we just didn’t do it against them.”
UNC had a 61-58 lead when senior forward Armando Bacot committed turnovers on three straight possessions, all while he was put in position as a ball handler making a pass.
The first came when he tried to dump it off to Pete Nance in the lane.
The second was a bounce pass on a backdoor cut by R.J. Davis.
The third turnover happened when he tried to swing the ball to the left wing and his pass was deflected and stolen by Jaren Holmes.
Bacot finished the game with five turnovers, which marked the fourth time in his career he had so many.
“I thought I should have done a better job of meeting the guards and getting closer to them versus throwing long passes,” said Bacot, who had 13 points and nine rebounds. “I mean, they got the steal and you just have to live with it.”
Iowa State ranked second nationally with a 30.5 defensive turnover percentage, according to Ken Pomeroy.
The Cyclones (5-0) took advantage of all three turnovers just as they did all game. UNC totaled 14 turnovers that Iowa State’ turned into 21 points.
“I feel like a lot of their points were because of our mistakes,” said Nance, who had nine points and seven rebounds.
It wasn’t just the turnovers late, it was the lack of quality shots too. Iowa State held the Heels to just 36 percent shooting in the second half and kept them from sustaining any kind of flow offensively against its 1-3-1 zone.
From Leaky Black’s layup with 3:55 left the Heels didn’t make another basket until Nance’s shot as time expired.
It was a reversal of how the Heels played in their first five games. When pushed late in games, they seemingly flipped a switch and made the right plays down the stretch. Just Thursday, Carolina closed out Portland with a 16-6 run that turned a two-point deficit with 4:35 left into an eight-point win. But the Heels didn’t have the same poise against the Cyclones.
“We’ve done a good job in these past couple games making the plays we needed down the stretch,” Nance said. “But today we obviously fumbled a couple of balls, a couple of turnovers, but that happens.”
The zone didn’t shut them down. Carolina sliced through the zone on many possessions earlier in the half. But Iowa State did have a lot of length in its zone that made the Heels play deliberate against it. And once they trailed, they seemed to speed up against the zone and they did not get good shots down the stretch.
“I kind of felt like when it got down for us to make plays, we got a little bit stagnant,” said R.J. Davis, who scored a team-high 15 points. “They were in the passing lanes denying and that kind of turned us into like a one-on-one kind of a matchup.”
Carolina couldn’t shoot its way out of the zone either. Both Davis and Caleb Love were 1-for-7 from 3-point range and as a team the Heels totaled just 3-for-18.
Iowa State had no problem from deep, despite entering the game among the worst in all of Division I making just 27.4 percent from 3-point range.
The Cyclones were led by senior guard Caleb Grill, who epitomized their struggles having made just 4 of 24 3-pointers through their first four games. Grill had that many by halftime against the Heels.
His hot hand continued into the second half as Grill tied his career-high with seven 3s and notched a new career-high with 31 points. His jumper with 1:39 left gave the Cyclones the lead for good.
“He hit a lot of crazy shots, a lot of shots that were over our hand and a lot of deep ones,” Love said. “So it was tough, obviously because he was hitting a lot of tough shots and we were like, ‘What are you gonna do?’ But he played out of his mind, credit to him.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2022 at 7:53 PM.