By R.L. Bynum

CHAPEL HILL — No. 7 North Carolina’s offense shifted into overdrive by turning up the pressure inside against smaller Syracuse and administering a beatdown.

With a top-five ranking likely coming, the Tar Heels showed they are one of the country’s best teams and the deepest they’ve been in a few seasons.

Syracuse was helpless to stop the onslaught as 11 Tar Heels scored, led by RJ Davis’ 22 points, in a 103–67 romp over the Orange on Saturday at the Smith Center behind 39 bench points, the most against a Power 6 team, for their sixth consecutive win.

“I thought our pace was really good,” said UNC coach Hubert Davis, whose team scored a season-high 22 second-chance points. “After we got a stop, the way we advanced the ball from defense to offense. We were pitching the ball ahead.”

With Syracuse’s tallest starter 6–7 Chris Bell, UNC (7–0, 5–0) feasted on inside points with a season-high 58, compared to 32 for Syracuse. UNC’s rebounding margin of 53–30 was its largest of the season.

Armando Bacot (16 points, 11 rebounds) and Harrison Ingram (11 points, 10 rebounds) both had double-doubles.

“It’s just been a lot of fun,” said Bacot, who notched his 76th double-double and eighth of the season. “We’ve been having fun all year, and I think the other guys are really starting to see how fun it is winning at a school like this, in a program like this and how much the fans are into it. It’s been great.”

Jalen Washington (11 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists) and Jae’Lyn Withers (10 points, 6 rebounds) both were productive off the bench.

“We’re were able to get it inside, just get second-chance opportunities, get to the rim, get to the free-throw line,” Washington said. “Those are the key things that Coach wants us to do.”

The guards had just as much to do with the success inside.

“Just driving the open lanes, driving the gaps, using our 3-point perimeter as a threat,” said RJ Davis, who tied his career-high with five steals (also against Charleston Southern last month). “They closed out really well to the free-throw line, so we were able to drive by the closeouts to give the ball down low.”

Freshman point guard Elliot Cadeau’s floor game keeps improving, with six points and three assists.

“I think just his passing and the way he moves the ball really has been infectious with us all year, and I think that’s why you see a lot of guys putting up big points,” Bacot said.

RJ Davis scored four 3-pointers, his 13th consecutive game with multiple 3s, a streak that is second only in program history to Justin Jackson’s streak of 15 in the 2016–17 season. It was Davis’ first time with at least 20 points in four games after doing it in the previous eight.

“The schedule that we’ve played and the teams that we’ve played, we have been in a lot of situations,” Coach Davis said. “One of the things that I’m just so pleased about is that this group doesn’t get rattled easily. In those situations, we just get back to what we need to do and be able to extend the lead.”

UNC continued to play well on defense, and has held the last three opponents to 7 of 58 from 3-point range. The Tar Heels collected a season-high 13 steals, the most since swiping 13 in a 38-point win at Wake Forest on Feb. 16, 2019.

“We’re getting better defensively,” Coach Davis said. “It’s something that we’ve identified to allow us to be successful, and to be the best team that we can possibly be. That trust on the defensive end is building.”

Washington said that the Tar Heels have made it a focal point to be a defensive-minded team.

“We just kind of taking it personal,” Washington said. “Whoever’s guarding their best scorers, we’ve got to have their backs. We know the guys on them are going to do their best job, too.”

Carolina attacked the basket aggressively, seizing the lead for good at 9–3 with a 7–0 run after Ryan’s fast-break layup.

“They didn’t have much size and [Maliq] Brown, he’s a good player but not as tall,” Bacot said. “But I think, as a group, we did a good job of just getting to the paint, getting easy layups, getting offensive rebounds. That was really our main key the whole game.”

A Withers jumper capped eight straight UNC points to push the lead to 12 with 13:19 left. A 15–5 run ballooned the lead to 18 five minutes later on back-to-back 3-pointers from Seth Trimble and Ingram. Three minutes later, a Jae’Lyn Withers follow shot ended a 9–0 run and the lead was 27.

Syracuse (11–4, 2–3) took advantage of a more than 3½-minute UNC scoring drought to reel off nine straight points and cut its deficit to 18. But the Heels led 52–30 at halftime, second only to the 23-point halftime edge against Charleston Southern.

It was UNC’s largest halftime lead in an ACC game since leading Florida State by 38 on Feb. 12, 2022.

After the Orange opened the second half with a 9–2 run to pull within 15, a Bacot dunk and Davis layup highlighted a 10–0 run, UNC’s 10th such run this season. A 13–2 run pushed the lead to 34 with 13:03 left.

It was so one-sided that the first walk-on to enter the game, Creighton Lebo, came with 6:35 remaining, and UNC secured the biscuits discount on a James Okonkwo free throw with 1:39 left (the second time this season he’s scored UNC’s 100th point).

Judah Mintz scored 21 points for Syracuse, which suffered a loss to UNC by the largest margin in program history (the previous highest were 23-point losses in Charlotte on Jan. 8, 1983, and in Syracuse on Dec. 10, 1983).

NOTES — Carolina is home again on Wednesday for its only 9 p.m. ACC game of the season, facing Louisville (ACC Network). The Cardinals (6–10, 1–4) lost to N.C. State 89–83 on Saturday. … UNC’s previous most bench points against a Power 6 team was 26 in the 100–92 win Nov. 30 in the Bahamas over Tennessee. … Carolina held Syracuse to 29% from the floor in the first half, the third straight half the opponents shot under 30% (N.C. State shot 28.1 and 26.5 by half in Raleigh). … RJ Davis (1,630 points) passed Mitch Kupchak, Hubert Davis, Jawad Williams, Justin Jackson and Eric Montross in career scoring to move into 24th place in UNC history. … This was Carolina’s latest January home game since a 69–66 win over Virginia on Jan. 18, 1984. … The 103 points were UNC’s most in an ACC game since a 113–96 win over N.C. State on Feb. 5, 2019. … UNC has held six straight opponents under 70 points. … Cormac Ryan (9 points) was +35, the highest for a Tar Heel in ACC play. … Carolina wore throwback uniforms to honor the teams that went to three consecutive Final Fours from 1967 to 1969. … This is Carolina’s first 5–0 start in the ACC since the 2015–16 team won its first eight league games. … UNC is 7–0 in the Smith Center against Syracuse, leads the all-time series 17–6 and has won three straight and 15 of the last 17. … Legendary UNC guard Phil Ford presented Bacot with the game ball from the win at Pittsburgh for becoming the seventh Tar Heel to score 2,000 points. … Cadeau, Davis, Ryan, Ingram and Bacot started for the ninth consecutive game. The Tar Heels are 7–2 with that lineup (losses to UConn and Kentucky). Coach Davis first started that lineup for the 78–72 home win on Dec. 2 over Florida State. … The UNC pep band wore Alexander Julian-designed shirts for the game.

No. 7 UNC 103, Syracuse 67

ACC standings

Team	League	Overall
No. 4 North Carolina	17–3	25–6
No. 11 Duke	15–5	24–7
Virginia	13–7	22–9
Pittsburgh	12–8	21–10
Clemson	11–9	21–10
Syracuse	11–9	20–11
Wake Forest	11–9	19–12
Virginia Tech	10–10	18–13
Florida State	10–10	16–15
N.C. State	9–11	17–13
Boston College	8–12	17–14
Georgia Tech	7–12	14–17
Notre Dame	7–13	12–19
Miami	6–14	15–16
Louisville	3–17	8–22

Saturday’s games
No. 4 North Carolina 84, No. 11 Duke 79
Virginia Tech 82, Notre Dame 76
Florida State 83, Miami 75
Boston College 67, Louisville 61
Wake Forest 81, Clemson 76
Pittsburgh 81, N.C. State 73
Virginia 72, Georgia Tech 57
ACC tournament
March 12–16, Capitol One Arena, Washington

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