By R.L. Bynum
ATLANTA — Cormac Ryan found his shot in Atlanta, but Armando Bacot could barely get off any shots against No. 14 Kentucky’s tall, physical lineup that dominated the boards.
Even with Bacot neutralized for most of the game, No. 9 Carolina challenged No. 14 Kentucky until the end but couldn’t get enough stops or plays in the final minutes as the Wildcats held on for an 87–83 victory Saturday at the CBS Sports Classic in the State Farm Arena.
According to Coach John Calipari, Carolina (7–3) is Final Four caliber, but the execution down the stretch will have to get better for the Tar Heels to get that far, and they’ll have to learn to win against a physical team.
With five seconds left and the Tar Heels down three, freshman point guard Elliot Cadeau’s bad pass foiled their chances to tie it, and Aaron Bradshaw’s free throw with four seconds left put the game away for the Wildcats.
Coach Davis remembered that Dean Smith used to say that a mistake is good when you recognize it, admit it and grow from it, and he hopes that’s what happens with his team. After Carolina took its only lead of the game on a Bacot free throw with 5:15 left, it only lasted 17 seconds.
“I feel like we’re good, but we’ve got a long way to go. We have a lot to improve on, and a lot to learn from,” Coach Davis said. “We’re going to be in this situation again where we’re up by one with five minutes to go.”
Neither UNC Coach Hubert Davis nor the players wanted to get into the specifics of the play that went awry because they will likely to run that again with the game on the line. And they hope it’s with a different outcome.
“The long and short of it is stuff happens in the game, and Elliott’s a great passer,” said Ryan, who scored 27 points and four 3-pointers in his best game as a Tar Heel after shooting 9 of 33 from 3-point range in the previous five games. “Sometimes, you come out of the huddle, things go differently.
“We pick each other up, and we stay together,” said Ryan, who was 8 of 12 from the floor and 4 of 7 from 3-point range. “We have a lot of faith that we’re going to execute in late-game situations. Sometimes you’ve got to play a good team in a tough environment early in the season to find out that you’ve got work to do to finish our games.”
The play probably was set to give RJ Davis a shot at tying it for a 3-pointer, but it didn’t work out.
“We just didn’t execute the play properly,” RJ Davis said. “There’s been a lot of plays like that throughout the game, and I point that out a lot of times, but we’ll be better next time.”
Davis led Carolina (7–3) again with many big shots and 18 of his 27 points, but UNC came up short at the end.
“I think it is the little details,” he said. “We were right there at the end of the game. Just a couple of slippages, not grabbing the rebound.”
After Hubert Davis emphasized rebounding in practice since the loss to UConn, the Tar Heels again did poorly under the boards and, on top of that, committed a season-high 17 turnovers.
It typified Carolina’s rebounding problems that RJ Davis led UNC with seven. Then, when he and Bacot converged for what would have been a big late rebound, they knocked the ball away from each other to give the ball back to Kentucky. The Wildcats outrebounded UNC 42–32 and snagged 40.9% of their misses.
Coach Davis said losing the board battle was all about not matching Kentucky’s physicality,
“Kentucky was tougher than us in the trenches,” he said. “In order to win games like that, you have to win the battle in the paint, whether it’s rebounding, loose balls, finishing around the basket, you have to win those individual battles, and we did not in terms of rebounding; that’s why we lost the game.”
Bacot, who got off one first-half shot, had nine points, six rebounds, and more turnovers (6) than shots (4).
“UNC is a Final Four-level team; they are,” Calipari said. “And Davis is one of the best players in the country right now. Three-level scorer — layup, mid-range and three. They’re a good team; we were lucky to win.”
When a Carolina fan hit a half-court shot after the second television timeout, the Tar Heels had made only one of eight 3-point attempts, facing an early 10-point deficit on a 3-pointer with 11:36 left in the first half from Kentucky’s Adou Thiero.
After that time out, RJ Davis and Ryan scored back-to-back 3-pointers and Ryan had seven points during a 10–4 run that sliced the lead to six on his transition layup with 8:07 left in the first half.
“I thought, especially in the first half, in a timeout I told them — I think they were so ready to play,” Coach Davis said. “We were going too fast, and it was — I always say that turnovers are one of two things, they’re carelessness or selfishness. It was 100 percent never selfishness, it was just carelessness. I think they were so hyped up that they were moving so fast that we were turning the ball over.”
Bacot came out for more than three minutes after picking up his second foul with 6:52 left, but UNC cut the lead to three with an 8–3 run with 5:36 left on a pair of Davis free throws. After Kentucky pushed it back to 10, the Tar Heels finished the first half with an 11–3 run, holding Kentucky without a field goal in the last 4:27, to slice their halftime deficit to 40–38.
Bradshaw went to the bench with his fourth foul three minutes into the second half but the Wildcats went on a 15–3 run to lead 55–43 on a 3-pointer with 15:23 left from Rob Dillingham.
A Davis jumper capped six straight UNC points to cut it to six with 13:11 left. After the lead expanded to 10 again, Davis’ three-point play on a drive cut it to four with 8:24 remaining. A pair of Jalen Washington free throws with 6:47 left cut the lead to one, as did a Bacot dunk 40 seconds later.
Bacot’s two free throws with 5:15 left gave UNC its brief edge at 72–71 before three straight Kentucky layups shoved the lead back to five. Davis’ 3-pointer with 2:42 cut Kentucky’s lead to two, and his 3 with 1:57 left cut it to one.
After a pair of Bradshaw free throws with 46 seconds gave the Wildcats a four-point lead, Harrison Ingram hit two free throws with 27.1 seconds left to make it a two-point game. Dillingham split two free throws with 11 seconds left before Cadeau’s turnover and Bradshaw’s free throw.
Dillingham led Kentucky (8–2) with 17 points.
NOTES — Ohio State beat UCLA 67–60 in Saturday’s first game. … Carolina plays its final regular-season non-conference game at Charlotte’s Spectrum Center on Wednesday at 9 p.m. in the Jumpman Invitational against No. 11 Oklahoma (10–0), which beat Wisconsin Green Bay 81–47 on Saturday night. Both teams beat Arkansas, the Tar Heels winning 87–72 on Nov. 24 in the Bahamas and the Sooners winning 79–70 in Tulsa, Okla., on Dec. 9. … UNC’s 17 turnovers were the most since committing 18 against Alabama in November 2022. … RJ Davis passed Tyler Zeller (1,501) and Scott Williams (1,508) for 31st in UNC all-time scoring with 1,520 points. … Davis made his first eight free-throw attemptss, which extended his streak to 41 in a row, which tied the all-time UNC record (he missed his ninth attempt which ended the streak at 41). Jeff Lebo made 41 in a row in 1989. … Carolina fell to 6–3 in the CBS Sports Classic, with all three defeats coming against the Wildcats. … The Tar Heels still have a decisive lead in the all-time series with Kentucky 25–18, but have lost three of the last four meetings.
No. 14 Kentucky 87, No. 9 UNC 83
UNC lineup combinations
| Score | Time | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Segment score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starters | 20:00 | Cadeau | Davis | Ryan | Ingram | Bacot | 4–9 |
| 4–9 | 15:17 | Davis | Wojcik | Ingram | Withers | 4–4 | |
| 8–13 | 13:26 | Cadeau | Washington | 0–3 | |||
| 8–16 | 13:04 | Trimble | 0–1 | ||||
| 8–17 | 12:32 | Davis | Trimble | Ingram | 5–5 | ||
| 13–22 | 10:24 | Davis | Trimble | Ryan | High | Bacot | 5–4 |
| 18–26 | 8:30 | Ingram | 2–0 | ||||
| 20–26 | 7:57 | Cadeau | Davis | 2–0 | |||
| 22–26 | 6:52 | Washington | 7–11 | ||||
| 29–37 | 4:04 | Davis | Trimble | 0–0 | |||
| 29–37 | 3:45 | Bacot | 1–2 | ||||
| 30–39 | 2:54 | Withers | 5–1 | ||||
| 35–40 | 1:19 | Ingram | Withers | 3–0 | |||
| 38–40 | :14 | Bacot | 0–0 | ||||
| 38–40 | Half | Cadeau | Davis | 5–10 | |||
| 43–50 | 16:17 | Davis | Trimble | 0–5 | |||
| 43–55 | 14:39 | Withers | 8–5 | ||||
| 51–60 | 11:41 | Cadeau | 1–0 | ||||
| 52–60 | 11:41 | Ryan | Ingram | 5–3 | |||
| 57–63 | 10:09 | Davis | Cadeau | Ryan | Ingram | 2–2 | |
| 59–65 | 9:06 | Ryan | Ingram | Withers | 3–0 | ||
| 62–65 | 8:35 | Trimble | Washington | 4–5 | |||
| 66–69 | 6:47 | Ryan | 2–0 | ||||
| 68–69 | 6:47 | Bacot | 15–12 | ||||
| 83–86 | 0:05 | Trimble | Withers | Ingram | 0–0 | ||
| 83–86 | 0:04 | Ryan | 0–1 | ||||
| 83–87 | Final |
| Date | Month/day | Score | Opponent/event (current ranks) | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October | ||||
| 27 | Friday | W, 117–53 | vs. St. Augustine’s | Exhibition |
| November | ||||
| 6 | Monday | W, 86–70 | vs. Radford | 1–0 |
| 12 | Sunday | W, 90–68 | vs. Lehigh | 2–0 |
| 17 | Friday | W, 77–52 | vs. UC Riverside | 3–0 |
| Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas | ||||
| 22 | Wednesday | W, 91–69 | Northern Iowa | 4–0 |
| 23 | Thursday | L, 83–81, OT | Villanova | 4–1 |
| 24 | Friday | W, 87–72 | Arkansas | 5–1 |
| ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge | ||||
| 29 | Wednesday | W, 100–92 | vs. No. 6 Tennessee | 6–1 |
| December | ||||
| 2 | Saturday | W, 78–70 | vs. Florida State | 7–1, 1–0 ACC |
| Jimmy V Classic in New York | ||||
| 5 | Tuesday | L, 87–67 | No. 1 Connecticut | 7–2 |
| CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta | ||||
| 16 | Saturday | L, 87–83 | No. 12 Kentucky | 7–3 |
| Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte | ||||
| 20 | Wednesday | W, 81–69 | Oklahoma | 8–3 |
| ————————— | ||||
| 29 | Friday | W, 105–60 | vs. Charleston Southern | 9–3 |
| January | ||||
| 2 | Tuesday | W, 70–57 | at Pittsburgh | 10–3, 2–0 ACC |
| 6 | Saturday | W, 65–55 | at Clemson | 11–3, 3–0 ACC |
| 10 | Wednesday | W, 67–54 | at N.C. State | 12–3, 4–0 ACC |
| 13 | Saturday | W, 103–67 | vs. Syracuse | 13–3, 5–0 ACC |
| 17 | Wednesday | W, 86–70 | vs. Louisville | 14–3, 6–0 ACC |
| 20 | Saturday | W, 76–66 | vs. Boston College | 15–3, 7–0 ACC |
| 22 | Monday | W, 85–64 | vs. Wake Forest | 16–3, 8–0 ACC |
| 27 | Saturday | W, 75–68 | at Florida State | 17–3, 9–0 ACC |
| 30 | Tuesday | L, 74–73 | at Georgia Tech | 17–4, 9–1 ACC |
| February | ||||
| 3 | Saturday | W, 93–84 | vs. No. 13 Duke | 18–4, 10–1 ACC |
| 6 | Tuesday | L, 80–76 | vs. Clemson | 18–5, 10–2 ACC |
| 10 | Saturday | W, 75–72 | at Miami | 19–5, 11–2 ACC |
| 13 | Tuesday | L, 86–79 | at Syracuse | 19–6, 11–3 ACC |
| 17 | Saturday | W, 96–81 | vs. Virginia Tech | 20–6, 12–3 ACC |
| 24 | Saturday | W, 54–44 | at Virginia | 21–6, 13–3 ACC |
| 26 | Monday | W, 75–71 | vs. Miami | 22–6, 14–3 ACC |
| March | ||||
| 2 | Saturday | W, 79–70 | vs. N.C. State | 23–6, 15–3 ACC |
| 5 | Tuesday | W, 84–51 | vs. Notre Dame | 24–6, 16–3 ACC |
| 9 | Saturday | W, 84–79 | at No. 13 Duke | 25–6, 17–3 ACC |
| ACC tournament Washington | ||||
| 14 | Thursday | W, 92–67 | Quarterfinals: Florida State | 26–6 |
| 15 | Friday | W, 72–65 | Semifinals: Pittsburgh | 27–6 |
| 16 | Saturday | L, 84–76 | Final: N.C. State | 27–7 |
| NCAA tournament | ||||
| 21 | Thursday | W, 90–62 | First round in Charlotte: Wagner | 28–7 |
| 23 | Saturday | W, 85–69 | Second round in Charlotte: Michigan State | 29–7 |
| 28 | Thursday | L, 89–87 | Sweet 16 in Los Angeles: No. 19 Alabama | 29–8 |
Photo via @UNC_Basketball
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