By R.L. Bynum
UNCASVILLE, Conn. — North Carolina continues to show that it can play with any team in the country, even perennial national powers, but getting that signature victory remains elusive for the No. 24 Tar Heels, as is a healthy roster.
After battling from a 10-point deficit against No. 17 UConn to tie it by halftime, Paige Bueckers and the Huskies used an 18–7 third-quarter run to seize control on their way to a 76–64 victory Sunday at the Mohegan Sun Arena in the finale of the Hall of Fame Women’s Classic tripleheader.
Short-handed UNC (6–4) could never find the offensive punch in the second half that produced 26 second-quarter points and appeared to wear down as only seven Tar Heels played, with only six playing after halftime.
Eleven days after the Tar Heels gave No. 1 South Carolina its stiffest challenge of the season, they hung with UConn (6–3) until that pivotal third-quarter stretch.
“I’m more frustrated that we aren’t healthy,” UNC coach Courtney Banghart said when asked about falling just short of two big wins. “I think if we’re healthy, it’s a totally different ballgame. And you’re not, and so you’re fighting.”
Carolina played without two guards — redshirt sophomore Kayla McPherson and sophomore Paulina Paris — for the second consecutive game. Sophomore Stanford transfer Indya Nivar made her second straight start. A third guard, Reniya Kelly, played a strong first half but got a concussion and didn’t play in the second half.
“The lack of consistency is exhausting at times,” Banghart said of not knowing who will play from game to game. She found out at 10 a.m. that McPherson wouldn’t be able to play. “It’s hard not to get discouraged when you’ve got so many guys on the bench. You’re staring at kids and timeouts, and they’re looking at you and they’re trying to get their breath. Their legs are heavy.”
Junior Boston College center Maria Gakdeng had another strong game with 14 points, 13 rebounds, three assists and two blocks for her first double-double as a Tar Heel before fouling out late in the game. Deja Kelly scored 11 points, six in the first two minutes, and Alyssa Ustby collected 10 points, seven rebounds, three assists and three steals.
“The mental mistakes, silly turnovers or missed layups,” Banghart said, “Alyssa missed so many layups tonight, and she’s so good for us. She was tired. You’re going to have to be tougher tired until we get healthy. There’s just no other way around it.”
UConn also has a few injured players, so the Tar Heels aren’t alone, and she commiserated with UConn coach Geno Auriemma before the game.
“I was sort of joking before the game that if we were both were healthy, you guys would have had quite a game to watch,” Banghart said.
Deja Kelly said that she’s seen a frustrating pattern in UNC’s three losses to ranked teams, with a third loss against Kansas State.
“I think in those games specifically, we’ve played really well on the defensive end or really well on the offensive end, and we just can’t win games like that,.” she said. “I think in this game, it was a little bit of both, but it just wasn’t as consistent, especially the third quarter.”
Donarski, who scored 12 points and two 3-pointers, got the daunting assignment of guarding Bueckers, UConn’s star redshirt junior point guard, who made a lot of tough shots on her way to scoring 26 points.
“She’s a good player, I’ve seen her before.” Bueckers said of Donarski, who she played against and with in the AAU circuit. “It’s fun to compete against people, you know, people who kind of grew up with playing with.”
While UNC had its share of fans, it felt like a UConn home game with the school’s pep band, dance team and cheerleaders entertaining a partisan Huskies crowd.
After UNC took a 6–2 lead in the first two minutes on three Deja Kelly buckets, two on tough jumpers, the Tar Heels didn’t score for more than seven minutes. That stretch looked even more disastrous for UNC when it appeared that Ustby picked up her third foul, but the officials later gave that third foul to Lexi Donarski.
By the time Reniya Kelly hit a jumper with 1:47 left in the opening quarter to end a 13–0 run, the Heels trailed 15–8.
After UConn expanded the lead to 10 on a KK Arnold layup in the first two minutes of the second quarter, Carolina took a two-point lead when Ustby scored half of UNC’s points on a 12–3 run. A free throw with 12 seconds left from Reniya Kelly, who had one of the strongest games of her freshman season, sent the game to halftime tied at 36.
“It’s good to see her kind of grow into the moment,” Banghart said of Reniya Kelly. “She young and we’ve really been urging her about not just being compliant, but being a hooper. I thought, in this environment, she was a hooper, and you can see why she was so heavily recruited.”
UNC turned it around by going from eight first-quarter turnovers to only one in the second quarter and Gakdeng scoring eight points in the period.
The Huskies scored the first 11 points of the second half, four on Bueckers layups, to grab the momentum. A pair of Nivar layups ignited a 6–0 UNC run to cut the lead to five, but an 18–7 Huskies run shoved it back to 14 and they took a 65–49 lead into the fourth quarter.
A 9–0 UNC run that Donarski capped with a 3-pointer and a jumper cut the lead to eight with 3:03 left, but it could come no closer.
NOTES — In Sunday’s first two games, No. 2 UCLA, which won a close closed scrimmage with UNC in Dallas before the season, beat No. 20 Florida State 95–78, and No. 1 South Carolina — which escaped with a 65–58 win at UNC on Nov. 30 — topped No. 11 Utah 78–69. … UNC and UConn will play against next season at the Greensboro Coliseum. … Redshirt sophomore Teonni Key was in uniform for the first time this season a couple of weeks after finally having the boot removed from her right foot but didn’t play. … Former UNC guard Eva Hodgson, who lives in New Hampshire, was at the game. … Carolina’s 26 second-quarter points were only topped for points in a quarter by the 40 the Tar Heels scored in the third quarter against Gardner-Webb. … UConn is 38–1 all-time at Mohegan Sun Arena. … UConn leads the series with Carolina 8–4 and has won six in a row. Carolina last won when the No. 9 Tar Heels beat the No. 4 Huskies in the Jimmy V Classic at the RBC Center (currently called PNC Arena) in Raleigh on Nov. 21, 2004. … This was the 11th time in 13 meetings that both teams were ranked. … UNC is 38–8 in regular-season non-conference games under Banghart, with wins in 21 of the last 23.
No, 17 UConn 76, No. 24 UNC 64
UNC lineup combinations
| Score | Time | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Segment score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starters | 10:00 | DK | Donarski | Nivar | Ustby | Gakdeng | 6–6 |
| 6–6 | 4:24 | Poole | 0–7 | ||||
| 6–13 | 2:07 | RK | Donarski | 4–6 | |||
| 10–19 | End 1 | Ustby | 21–15 | ||||
| 31–34 | 1:49 | Nivar | 4–2 | ||||
| 35–36 | 12.4 | Donarski | Nivar | Poole | 1–0 | ||
| 36–36 | Half | Ustby | Gakdeng | 10–17 | |||
| 46–54 | 2:57 | 8–14 | |||||
| 53–68 | 5:30 (4th) | Ustby | Poole | 9–5 | |||
| 62–73 | 1:45 | Nivar | Ustby | 0–0 | |||
| 62–73 | 1:24 | DK | Donarski | Nivar | Poole | 2–3 | |
| 64–76 | Final |
| Date | Day/month | Score | Opponent/event (current rank) | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| November | ||||
| 8 | Wednesday | W, 102–49 | vs. Gardner-Webb | 1–0 |
| 12 | Sunday | W, 74–70 | vs. Davidson | 2–0 |
| 15 | Wednesday | W, 62–32 | vs. Hampton | 3–0 |
| 18 | Saturday | W, 68–39 | vs. Elon | 4–0 |
| Gulf Coast Showcase in Estero, Fla. | ||||
| 24 | Friday | W, 54–51 | Vermont | 5–0 |
| 25 | Saturday | L, 63–56 | No. 15 Kansas State | 5–1 |
| 26 | Sunday | L, 65–64 | Florida Gulf Coast | 5–2 |
| ACC/SEC Women’s Challenge | ||||
| 30 | Thursday | L, 65–58 | vs. No. 1 South Carolina | 5–3 |
| December | ||||
| 6 | Wednesday | W, 81–66 | vs. UNC Greensboro | 6–3 |
| Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase in Uncasville, Conn. | ||||
| 10 | Sunday | L, 76–64 | No. 10 Connecticut | 6–4 |
| ——————— | ||||
| 15 | Friday | W, 96–36 | vs. Western Carolina | 7–4 |
| Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte | ||||
| 19 | Tuesday | W, 61–52 | No. 18 Oklahoma | 8–4 |
| ACC season | ||||
| 31 | Sunday | W, 82–76 | vs. Clemson | 9–4, 1–0 ACC |
| January | ||||
| 4 | Thursday | W, 75–51 | vs. No. 22 Syracuse | 10–4, 2–0 ACC |
| 7 | Sunday | W, 61–57 | at No. 9 Notre Dame | 11–4, 3–0 ACC |
| 11 | Thursday | L, 70–62 | at Florida State | 11–5, 3–1 ACC |
| 14 | Sunday | W, 81–68 | vs. Virginia | 12–5, 4–1 ACC |
| 18 | Thursday | W, 73–68 | at Georgia Tech | 13–5, 5–1 ACC |
| 21 | Sunday | W, 79–68 | vs. No. 23 Louisville | 14–5, 6–1 ACC |
| 25 | Thursday | W, 66–61 | vs. Miami | 15–5, 7–1 ACC |
| 28 | Sunday | L, 81–66 | at Virginia | 15–6, 7–2 ACC |
| February | ||||
| 1 | Thursday | L, 63–59 | at No. 11 N.C. State | 15–7, 7–3 ACC |
| 4 | Sunday | L, 70–61, OT | vs. No. 13 Virginia Tech | 15–8, 7–4 ACC |
| 11 | Sunday | L, 68–60, OT | at Duke | 15–9, 7–5 ACC |
| 15 | Thursday | W, 75–62 | vs. Pittsburgh | 16–9, 8–5 ACC |
| 18 | Sunday | W, 58–50 | at Wake Forest | 17–9, 9–5 ACC |
| 22 | Thursday | W, 80–70 | vs. No. 11 N.C. State | 18–9, 10–5 ACC |
| 25 | Sunday | L, 74–62 | at No. 13 Virginia Tech | 18–10, 10–6 ACC |
| 29 | Thursday | L, 78–74 | at Boston College | 18–11, 10–7 ACC |
| March | ||||
| 3 | Sunday | W, 63–59 | vs. Duke | 19–11, 11–7 ACC |
| ACC tournament Greensboro Coliseum | ||||
| 7 | Thursday | L, 60–59 | Second round: vs. Miami | 19–12 |
| NCAA tournament Columbia, S.C. | ||||
| 22 | Friday | W, 59–56 | First round: Michigan State | 20–12 |
| 24 | Sunday | L, 88–41 | Second round: No. 1 South Carolina | 20–13 |
Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics
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