‘We’re not good right now.’ UNC women squander 14-point lead to Duke, lose 4th straight
Alyssa Ustby sat on her knees under the basket as the buzzer went off to signal the end of regulation.
The North Carolina senior missed a game-winning layup with half a second remaining. Then she fouled out a minute and a half into overtime.
Four minutes later, the Tar Heels had lost their fourth straight game, after leading by as many as 14 points.
“I think the emotion is just pissed off. There’s no other way to it ,” Deja Kelly said. “After the first loss, we were like. ‘Oh, we’re good.’ It was a lot of the kumbaya stuff. Honestly, as a senior, I’m sick of that. ...We’re not good right now. We can be, but we’re not right now. We just have to continuously get better.”
The Heels had a chance to break away and looked dominant in the third. Blue Devils head coach Kara Lawson said UNC “threw a haymaker at us,” and it startled her squad.
Duke shot just 35.9% from the field in the first three quarters, below its 45.7% season average, and 3-14 (21.4%) from the perimeter. It only made three field goals in the third.
Then, the tide turned.
UNC missed eight straight shots to start the fourth. Between the fourth quarter and overtime period, the Tar Heels scored just five field goals — with just one 3-pointer — on 24 attempts (20.8%).
Carolina finished with 19 baskets, one off its season lows, and six of 20 on layups.
Meanwhile, Duke was busy breaking down the opposing defense and scoring 34 points in that same time period. It went 10 of 20 from the field.
Even with the Devils’ late surge, Carolina had multiple opportunities. Freshman Reniya Kelly tied the game at 58 with 3:22 remaining, but the team made just one of its last six shots and sent Duke to the free-throw line.
“We’ve got to find other people shots, but we need those people to actually shoot it. We need to finish around the rim,” Deja Kelly said. “We need to all defend, rebound better, even though I think our defense is pretty good. We’ve got to secure the ball, we need to run more in transition. There’s a long list of that.”
Deja Kelly led all scorers with 20 points, contributing 18 in the second half. She added five rebounds, one assist and a steal.
Lexi Donarski (11) and Reniya Kelly (13) were the only other Tar Heel players in double figures.
“We’re not going to get better at doing the same things,” Carolina coach Courtney Banghart said. “We’ve got to be able to play a little bit differently late. If we do, I think these results can change.”
This game doesn’t exist in a vacuum, though. The Tar Heels haven’t scored more than 66 points since their win over Louisville on Jan. 21. They haven’t created 10 or more assists since losing to Virginia a week later.
Carolina’s shooting efficiency dropped every game since beating the Cards, when it hit 49.1%. Its 31.1% efficiency against Duke is the lowest of the year — even below its outing versus South Carolina.
The Tar Heels have four days to make adjustments before they host Pittsburgh and try to right the ship.
“It’s enough. It’s time for it to be enough,” Deja Kelly said. “It should have been enough a game ago, and then the game before that, and then the game before that. I think we just need more people with a different mentality; a killer mentality. We can’t just have one or two people. That’s not just in the sense of scoring points. That’s a mentality that whatever’s happening, I’m going to lock into what I need to do to help the team win.”
