Henri Veesaar’s big night not enough as UNC loses to Clemson at ACC Tournament

“Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Midway through the second half in Charlotte, with his team down by double-digits and continuing to fade deeper into a deficit, that’s what UNC coach Hubert Davis kept yelling at his team from the sidelines. He needed them to fight. To punch back. To claw, if they had to.

But in the second matchup between No. 19 North Carolina and Clemson in 10 days — this one an 80-79 loss in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals that sent UNC packing — the Tar Heels waited too late to go for the knockout punch.

“The fight came too late,” UNC junior forward Jarin Stevenson said.

The Tar Heels (24-8, 12-6) got out to a six-point lead in the first five and a half minutes, but followed that with a cold stretch from the floor. North Carolina had made just one of its last seven field goals when Davis tore off his glasses and proceeded to tear into his team in a timeout huddle with 7:57 left in the first half.

He had been yelling across the court at his team to go inside — to pass the ball to the post. Instead, the Tar Heels had lofted nine 3-pointers at the time of that stoppage. They’d made two of them, good for 22.2%.

“Sometimes it was difficult (to go inside),” junior Luka Bogavac said. “They packed the paint really well.”

Still, the Tar Heels responded. A brief UNC flurry, capped by a 3-pointer from Stevenson, cut North Carolina’s deficit to two at 31-29. But Clemson (24-9, 12-6) followed that with an 8-2 run to close the first half and carry a 39-31 lead into the break.

A balanced Tigers scoring attack helped Clemson mount a double-digit lead early in the second half. The Tigers led by as many as 18 points with 11:36 left, and held on to a 73-58 lead with 3:36 to play.

UNC closed the game on a 21-7 run that included 11 points from freshman guard Derek Dixon, eight points from junior forward Henri Veesaar and a layup from senior captain Seth Trimble.

Veesaar had a monster night with 28 points and 17 rebounds. After the game, he said he took no satisfaction in his career-best performance.

“Ain’t nothing to be satisfied about — we lost,” Veesaar said. “So we’re going home.”

With the loss, the Tar Heels will return to Chapel Hill and await Selection Sunday at 6 p.m. on March 15 to find out their seeding for the NCAA Tournament. The N&O’s bracketologist, Patrick Stevens, has UNC projected as a No. 5 seed for The Big Dance.

Clemson moves on to face No. 1 Duke in the ACC Tournament semifinals on Friday night.

Here are three takeaways for the Tar Heels:

Henri setting the tone from the tip

Veesaar spoke after UNC’s loss to Duke about needing to set the tone early for his team. It was a personal challenge he took upon himself — one even more necessary given the news that the Tar Heels would be without Wilson for the remainder of the season.

On Thursday night, there would be no waiting for “second-half Henri” to appear. Veesaar started the game with a block on the opening possession before scoring three early buckets to help put North Carolina up, 14-8.

Veesaar struggled a bit against Clemson’s double teams — especially early on — leading to six turnovers by the Estonian. He faced plenty of pressure, too. At one point, senior forward RJ Godfrey practically shoved Veesaar out of bounds — almost as if he was practicing on a football push sled.

But he fought through it to produce his 14th double-double of the season, complete with career-best totals in scoring and rebounds.

“Caleb is an amazing player, and we miss him, but I’ll say that I just have gotten more opportunity,” Veesaar said after the loss. “He was an aggressive player. He got a lot of shots, he got a lot of possessions because he deserves it. And I think now it’s coming my way. So I’m going to do the best I can from every opportunity to give us a chance to win.”

Too many missed threes early

At the under-eight media timeout in the Tar Heels’ opening half, Davis had one main message for his team.

“17 shots,” he could be heard yelling at his players. “17 freaking shots, and nine of them threes!”

North Carolina trailed 22-21 at that point and had missed its last five 3-point attempts. Out of the break, Bogavac lofted one more shot from outside before the Tar Heels really started to pound the paint.

A Stevenson 3-pointer — preceded by two jumpers from him and Veesaar — cut UNC’s deficit to two points (31-29) with two minutes to play in the first half. But that triple wasn’t just chucked up. It was set up by an inside-out play: a dribble drive and kick from Trimble.

The Tar Heel’s perimeter production took a slight uptick in the second half, but UNC didn’t find its rhythm from deep until the closing minutes.

Davis cited the team’s inability to respond to physicality as a major reason to its large deficit.

“I felt like it was the same thing Saturday of last week (in the loss to Duke), and for most of the game tonight,” Davis said. “Clemson has always been physical defensively, and one of the things I always say is you never let a defense dictate and decide how efficient you are on the offensive end. And I felt like their physicality took us out of our offense. (It) took us off of our cuts, our screens, our moves, and didn’t really respond to that until the latter part of the second half.”

North Carolina, somehow, claws back

It took a while, but the Tar Heels did eventually answer their coach’s call to fight back.

A 13-3 run in the final four minutes cut UNC’s deficit — which was as large as 18 midway through the second half — to five points with just over a minute to go.

North Carolina called a timeout at the 1:05 mark. Out of the stoppage, a driving layup from Trimble trimmed the Tar Heels deficit further: to three points at 76-73.

After two Clemson free throws, Veesaar answered the call again. He knocked down his third triple and 10th field goal of the game to put North Carolina within two points of the Tigers.

With the score at 78-76, Clemson converted two free throws. Dixon responded with another timely 3-pointer — his fourth of the game — to make the score 80-79.

But a smart play from Davidson, who missed his second free throw on purpose in the waning seconds, prevented the Tar Heels, who were out of timeouts, from getting a good final shot off.

“I talked to the team Tuesday, Wednesday and today about having that hunger and that thirst,” Davis said following the loss. “That hunger and that thirst to compete, that hunger and thirst to prepare... to play together as a team and as a group as long as we can.

We have talked about that at great length.”

This story was originally published March 13, 2026 at 12:07 AM.