By R.L. Bynum

CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina couldn’t find that extra gear and the level of defensive intensity that carried the Tar Heels during their four-game win streak, and they didn’t do the little things needed to extend it.

The result — a 72–71 loss to Stanford on Saturday after a step-back jumper from former Duke reserve Jaylen Blakes with 1.5 seconds left — gave UNC a damaging Quad 3 loss and led to much reflection about what went wrong.

“I just felt like it was a culmination of little things,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “And I always say little things lead to big things happening. And I felt like those little things, little mistakes, led to big things happening today, resulting in the loss.”

The Tar Heels walked off the floor in disbelief. As the players returned to the dressing room after the game, Elliot Cadeau (12 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists) could be heard lamenting that it was “the first time they ever f-ing beat us.”

After Blakes hit the game-winner, a full-court inbounds pass from Ven-Allen Lubin, intended for Jalen Washington, went long to throw away the Tar Heels’ last chance.

“We were just trying to get the ball to Wash,” said Lubin, who had his best game as a Tar Heel with a season-high 13 points, 5 rebounds and 3 blocks. “Wash was going to set a down screen for RJ [Davis], just of kind of be like a decoy, trying to throw him the ball, and just have Wash [up against] a little guard underneath the basket. It was just for me to try to get it to him so we could get a quick layup.”

Coach Davis said the Tar Heels were trying to get something near the basket.

“I felt the ball curved and went off-center and went straight out of bounds or close to out of bounds,” he said

Carolina (12–7, 5–2 ACC) had a tough time controlling senior 7–1 center Maxime Raynaud (25 points, 3 3-pointers, 13 rebounds for his NCAA-leading 15th double-double). Raynaud’s defense made pick-and-rolls challenging, and he often took advantage of switches on the other end to create favorable matchups.

“I thought we competed against him. I thought there were some mistakes that we made against him,” Coach Davis said, pointing to poor close-outs on the perimeter. “His size around the basket; whether it was blocking shots or altering shots, it affected us sometimes because of his lift near the basket.”

But even though the Tar Heels held Raynaud to one field goal over the last 15 minutes, they couldn’t finish off the Cardinal.

RJ Davis (team-high 19 points, 5 assists and 3 rebounds), who was in his best offensive rhythm in several games with his scoring and distributing, blamed the defensive lapses for the loss.

“I just think we weren’t attentive with our details,” he said. “We had a lot of slip-up plays in the second half, and we just weren’t as aggressive on defense. We weren’t really into the ball. There wasn’t as much communication. I think that kind of just led on to plays, and the plays that they were able to execute off of.”

Blakes, a 6–2 fifth-year guard who was scoreless in five total minutes over two games against UNC while at Duke, came off switches for many of his 20 points. That was his second-highest scoring output this season.

Seth Trimble had nine points and four rebounds, but all four of his rebounds were huge. Even with his solid defense, UNC couldn’t do enough to stop Raynaud and Blakes.

“Defense is always a team effort, so it’s not on the bigs. But we definitely wanted to contain him,” Trimble said of Raynaud. “We knew they run their offense through Jaylen Blakes. Wanted to shut him down, but we didn’t do that. We didn’t really do anything that we talked about and knew we had to do to win this game.”

Carolina got huge last-second stops in wins against UCLA, N.C. State and Notre Dame, but couldn’t get it done to stop Blakes.

“We’ve got to get a stop, and we got to finish the possession with a rebound,” Coach Davis said. “You have to give credit to Blake’s being able to make that shot in that situation.”

After Ian Jackson had at least five field goals in the previous eight games, he scored a season-low one bucket on eight attempts, missed all five 3-point attempts and finished with six points. It was his lowest output in that eight-game stretch.

“I thought Ian took good shots,” Coach Davis said. “Their length bothered us. I feel like we could have attacked the basket more with that length in there.”

Five straight Stanford points, all from Raynaud, gave the Cardinal a four-point lead six minutes into the game. UNC responded with a 17–6 run — including a corner Trimble 3-pointer (his first in four games since suffering a concussion) and a transition Davis 3 — to take a 24–17 lead after 12 minutes.

A Raynaud transition dunk on Cade Tyson started a 5–0 Stanford run to tie the game with 2:52 left in the first half on a Blakes layup. Raynaud gave the Cardinal a brief lead with a 3-pointer before Davis’ two free throws with six seconds left gave UNC a 36–35 halftime edge.

Carolina jumped ahead by five in the first five minutes after halftime. But a Donavin Young 3-pointer put Stanford up 52–49 eight minutes in, and a 5–0 Cardinal run pushed the lead to five with 9½ minutes left as UNC rushed shots and committed fouls late in the shot clock.

Jackson’s only bucket and a transition Trimble layup sliced the deficit to one. A 6–0 UNC run, which Cadeau capped with a twisting transition layup, gave the Heels a three-point lead with 6:47 left. Davis made both ends of a one-and-one two minutes later to give UNC a five-point lead.

UNC repeatedly had chances to add to the lead but couldn’t do it.

“We had wide open shot by the right people, and it just didn’t go in,” Coach Davis said, “and they took a shot,and it went in. And so sometimes those situations just happen.”

Stanford (12–6, 4–3) cut the lead to one on a Raynaud 3-pointer with 2:23 left, and a Trimble bucket restored a one-point lead after Stanford briefly went up by one.

After Blakes made a pair of free throws with 24.1 seconds left to put Stanford up by one, Trimble regained the lead with two free throws with 7.7 seconds remaining before Blakes’ big shot.

NOTES — Carolina next plays at 9 p.m. Tuesday (ESPN) at Wake Forest (14–4, 5–1), which won 72–63 at Virginia Tech on Saturday afternoon. … Stanford came into the game 85th in the NET rankings, so it would have to rise 30 spots for UNC’s loss to become Quad 2. … Carolina committed a season-low-tying five turnovers (also vs. American). It was the fewest turnovers by the Tar Heels in a loss since losing to Duke 86–78 on Feb. 9, 2017. … Blakes’ shot was the first time an opponent hit a game-winning shot with under than five seconds to play since Matt Coleman III of Texas on Dec. 2, 2020. … RJ Davis, who led UNC in scoring for the sixth time this season and 51st time in his career, became the seventh player in ACC history to elipse 2,400 points (2,416). … Davis had UNC’s best game score at 15.1 and Tyson had the worst at -0.4. … Carolina lost by one point at the Smith Center for the first time since a 65–64 loss to Pittsburgh on Feb. 1, 2023. … UNC lost at the Smith Center when leading at halftime for the first time since losing to Duke on Feb. 8, 2020. This was the 19th time Carolina has lost at the Smith Center when leading at halftime. … UNC football coach Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson, his 24-year-old girlfriend, were at the game. Belichick was seen embracing Roy Williams before the game. … Many members of UNC’s 2016 national runner-up team were on hand. … The loss moved UNC to 5–1 in Quad 3 games with four left: at Syracuse on Feb. 15, at home against N.C. State on Feb. 19 and Virginia on Feb. 22, and vs. Virginia Tech on March 4. … It was Stanford’s first win in 14 meetings with UNC, but the Tar Heels hold a 3–1 edge in games in Chapel Hill and 2–1 in the Smith Center. … Washington took a season-high nine shots, finishing with 8 points and 4 rebounds.

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Stanford 72, UNC 71

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Team	League	Overall	NET*
No. 4 Duke	8–0	19–1	2
No. 22 Clemson	7–1	17–4	29
No. 17 Virginia	6–2	17–3	16
Miami	6–2	17–4	36
N.C. State	6–2	15–6	27
No. 16 North Carolina	4–3	16–4	26
SMU	4–3	15–5	31
Virginia Tech	5–4	16–6	54
No. 20 Louisville	4–4	14–6	19
California	3–5	15–6	56
Stanford	3–5	14–7	77
Syracuse	3–5	12–9	80
Boston College	2–5	9–11	157
Georgia Tech	2–6	11–10	140
Notre Dame	2–6	11–10	82
Wake Forest	2–6	11–10	67
Florida State	2–6	9–12	107
Pittsburgh	2–6	9–12	118

* — Through Wednesday games
Monday’s result
No. 4 Duke 83, No. 20 Louisville 52
Tuesday’s results
Pittsburgh 80, Wake Forest 76, OT
N.C. State 88, Syracuse 68
No. 17 Virginia 100, Notre Dame 97, 2 OTs
Virginia Tech 71, Georgia Tech 65
Wednesday’s results
Florida State 63, California 61
Miami 79, Stanford 70
Saturday’s games
No. 4 Duke at Virginia Tech, noon, ESPN
Pittsburgh at No. 22 Clemson, noon, ACC Network
No. 17 Virginia at Boston College, 1:30, The CW
No. 16 North Carolina at Georgia Tech, 2 p.m., ACC Network
SMU at No. 23 Louisville, 2 p.m., ESPN
N.C. State at Wake Forest, 3:45, The CW
California at Miami, 4 p.m., ACC Network
Stanford at Florida State, 6 p.m., ACC Network
Notre Dame at Syracuse, 6 p.m., The CW
Monday’s game
Syracuse at No. 16 North Carolina, 7 p.m., ESPN

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UNC season statistics

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Date	Month/day	Time	Opponent/event (current ranks)	TV/ record
	October
24	Friday	L, 78–76	vs. No. 13 BYU in SLC	Exhib.
29	Wednesday	W, 95–53	vs. Winston-Salem St.	Exhib.
	November
3	Monday	W, 94–54	vs. Central Arkansas	1–0
7	Friday	W, 87–74	vs. No. 14 Kansas	2–0
11	Tuesday	W, 89–74	vs. Radford	3–0
14	Friday	W, 97–53	vs. N.C. Central	4–0
18	Tuesday	W, 73–61	vs. Navy	5–0
			Fort Myers Tip-Off
25	Tuesday	W, 85–70	vs. St. Bonaventure	6–0
27	Thursday	L, 74–58	vs. No. 7 Michigan State	6–1
	December		ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge
2	Tuesday	W, 67–64	at Kentucky	7–1
			—————————
7	Sunday	W, 81–61	vs. Georgetown	8–1
13	Saturday	W, 80–62	vs. USC Upstate	9–1
16	Tuesday	W, 77–58	vs. ETSU	10–1
			CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta
20	Saturday	W, 71–70	vs. Ohio State	11–1
			—————————
22	Monday	W, 99–51	vs. East Carolina	12–1
30	Tuesday	W, 79–66	vs. Florida State	13–1, 1–0 ACC
	January
3	Saturday	L, 97–83	at SMU	13–2, 1–1
10	Saturday	W, 87–84	vs. Wake Forest	14–2, 2–1
14	Wednesday	L, 95–90	at Stanford	14–3, 2–2
17	Saturday	L, 84–78	at California	14–4, 2–3
21	Wednesday	W, 91–69	vs. Notre Dame	15–4, 3–3
24	Saturday	W, 85–80	at No. 17 Virginia	16–4, 4–3
31	Saturday	2 p.m.	at Georgia Tech	ACCN
	February
2	Monday	7 p.m.	vs. Syracuse	ESPN
7	Saturday	6:30	vs. No. 4 Duke	ESPN
10	Tuesday	7 p.m.	at Miami	ESPN or ESPN2
14	Saturday	2 p.m.	vs. Pittsburgh	ESPN
17	Tuesday	7 p.m.	at N.C. State	ESPN or ESPN2
21	Saturday	1 p.m.	at Syracuse	ABC
23	Monday	7 p.m.	vs. No. 20 Louisville	ESPN
28	Saturday	6:30 or 8:30	vs. Virginia Tech	ESPN or ESPN2
	March
3	Tuesday	7 p.m.	vs. No. 22 Clemson	ESPN or ESPN2
7	Saturday	6:30	at No. 4 Duke	ESPN
10–14	Tues.-Sat.	ACC tournament	Spectrum Center, Charlotte

Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics