What UNC can take from ‘unacceptable’ finish against Syracuse into Duke game

For 30 minutes Monday night, No. 14 North Carolina played the kind of basketball that erases doubt. Then, for the final 10, the Tar Heels played the kind that invites it back in.

Both parts of the night mattered — especially with No. 4 Duke rolling into Chapel Hill on Saturday.

UNC held on to win, 87-77, Monday at the Smith Center after nearly relinquishing a 32-point second-half lead to a struggling Syracuse squad (13-10, 4-6). The brand of basketball that allowed North Carolina to go on a 40-14 run midway through the game was commendable — “I like that” UNC coach Hubert Davis said after the game with a chuckle — but was nearly spent in a nine-minute closing stretch that served as a reminder that nothing in February stays settled for long.

“Realistically, at the end of the day, we won by 10,” UNC junior Henri Veesaar, who finished with his 12th double-double of the season, said. “If you win by one, win by 30, it goes into win column. In ACC conference play, everybody’s a good opponent. So you’ve got to appreciate the wins and celebrate them.”

Sure, the victory counted the same in the standings regardless of the final score. But what lingered afterward was the jarring contrast between the first 30 minutes and whatever went wrong for the Tar Heels (18-4, 6-3) after that.

“It’s always good to get a win, and the ACC is a tough league, but we can’t let that happen again,” added Caleb Wilson, who led the Tar Heels with 22 points.

North Carolina built a 14-point lead at halftime and started the second half with a blistering 26-9 run. The ball moved side to side, inside out, without hesitation. The Syracuse defense looked porous, almost like the Orange were running a shell drill. Veesaar and Wilson operated with the ease of long-time partners, carving space in the paint and finding shooters — or, oftentimes, each other — when Syracuse collapsed. The Tar Heels shot better than 53% in the first half and forced nine turnovers with active hands.

That stretch wasn’t built on pure shot-making alone, but habits. And then that attention to detail vanished.

“That’s something that we have battled all year, is our ability to stay on point, on script,” Davis said. “And that’s something that we need to fix now. We have stretches, I think, of brilliance. And then we’ll go stretches where we’re making multiple mistakes consecutively. That’s something that we have to work on, and something that we have to get better.”

Syracuse closed on a 37-14 stretch that saw the Orange, at one point, make 14 of 17 field-goal attempts. On the other end, UNC missed eight of its final 11 shots and committed six turnovers.

Davis didn’t disguise his frustration afterward, calling the ending “unacceptable.” His players echoed the sentiment, repeatedly describing the lapse as mental and effort-based.

That admission matters, said Davis.

“I always think of a quote from Coach Smith: ‘Mistakes are good when you can recognize it, admit it, learn from it, and grow from it,’” Davis said. “That’s what we’ll do very quickly.”

There were also plenty of signs Monday that North Carolina is growing in ways that could matter this month. The bench continues to give Davis workable options. Jonathan Powell’s early threes and transition dunk jolted the game open, and he went on to finish with 12 points. Luka Bogavac scored 10, marking his third consecutive game in double figures. Along with Jarin Stevenson, the trio helped UNC outscore Syracuse 29–16 in bench points.

And while Syracuse forward Donnie Freeman scored 18 of his 23 points in the first half, the Tar Heels largely solved that matchup in the second half.

But Saturday’s opponent presents plenty of new problems. Duke arrives with top-end talent like freshman phenom Cam Boozer, depth and the kind of discipline on both ends that punishes hesitation. The Blue Devils won’t spot North Carolina a 30-point cushion. They won’t wait for the Tar Heels’ focus to return.

In that sense, the Syracuse game, if used correctly, can function less as a warning than as a mirror. UNC has more proof of how good it can be, and even more film of how quickly that level erodes when attention wanders.

“I think it was mental more than anything,” Powell, who finished with his best scoring output in conference play, said. “Just having a mindset of no matter how much we’re up, just staying consistent with the little things that we did to [build] us that lead in first place.”

The Tar Heels left the floor Monday with a win, a warning, and — in the eyes of Veesaar — a lesson.

“It’s going to be good because it gives us something that we felt like we needed to do more for the next three days of practice before we play,” Veesaar said. “So I think that’s going to be important, to have something on film that we really know we got to have urgency to fix.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2026 at 6:05 AM.