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.
Stanford 72, UNC 71
ACC standings
| Team | League | Overall |
|---|---|---|
| No. 3 Duke | 8–0 | 16–2 |
| Clemson | 7–1 | 15–4 |
| Louisville | 7–1 | 14–5 |
| Wake Forest | 6–1 | 14–4 |
| SMU | 5–2 | 14–4 |
| North Carolina | 5–2 | 12–7 |
| Florida State | 4–3 | 13–5 |
| Stanford | 4–3 | 12–6 |
| Virginia Tech | 3–3 | 8–9 |
| Pittsburgh | 3–5 | 12–7 |
| Syracuse | 3–4 | 9–9 |
| N.C. State | 2–5 | 9–9 |
| Notre Dame | 2–5 | 8–10 |
| Georgia Tech | 2–6 | 8–11 |
| California | 2–5 | 9–9 |
| Boston College | 1–6 | 9–9 |
| Virginia | 1–6 | 8–10 |
| Miami | 0–7 | 4–14 |
Saturday’s results
Stanford 72, North Carolina 71
Florida State 91, Georgia Tech 78
Louisville 81, Virginia 67
Clemson 78, Pittsburgh 75, OT
SMU 117, Miami 74
Wake Forest 72, Virginia Tech 63
Syracuse 77, Notre Dame 69
California 65, N.C. State 62
No. 3 Duke 88, Boston College 63
Tuesday’s games
Boston College at Virginia, 7 p.m., ACCN
North Carolina at Wake Forest, 9 p.m., ESPN
Louisville at SMU, 9 p.m., ACCN
Wednesday’s games
Virginia Tech at Georgia Tech, 7 p.m., ESPNU
Syracuse at Clemson, 7 p.m., ACCN
Florida State at California, 9 p.m., ACCN
Miami at Stanford, 11 p.m., ESPNU
Saturday, Jan. 25, games
SMU at N.C. State, noon, The CW
Pitt at Syracuse, 12:30, ESPN2
Boston College at North Carolina, 2 p.m., The CW
No. 3 Duke at Wake Forest, 4:40, ESPN
Clemson at Virginia Tech, 5 p.m., ACCN
Notre Dame at Virginia, 6 p.m., ESPN2
Florida State at Stanford, 7 p.m., ACCN
Miami at California, 8:30, ESPNU
UNC season statistics
| Date | Month/day | Time/ score | Opponent/event (current ranks) | TV/ record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October | ||||
| 15 | Tuesday | W, 84–76 | at No. 18 Memphis | Exhibition |
| 27 | Sunday | W, 127–63 | vs. Johnson C. Smith | Exhibition |
| November | ||||
| 4 | Monday | W, 90–76 | vs. Elon | 1–0 |
| 8 | Friday | L, 92–89 | at No. 9 Kansas | 1–1 |
| 15 | Friday | W, 107–55 | vs. American | 2–1 |
| 22 | Friday | W, 85–69 | at Hawai’i | 3–1 |
| Maui Invitational | ||||
| 25 | Monday | W, 92–90 | Dayton | 4–1 |
| 26 | Tuesday | L, 85–72 | No. 1 Auburn | 4–2 |
| 27 | Wednesday | L, 94–91, OT | No. 12 Michigan State | 4–3 |
| December | ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge | |||
| 4 | Wednesday | L, 94–79 | vs. No. 4 Alabama | 4–4 |
| ————————— | ||||
| 7 | Saturday | W, 68–65 | vs. Georgia Tech | 5–4, 1–0 ACC |
| 14 | Saturday | W, 93–67 | vs. LaSalle | 6–4 |
| Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte | ||||
| 17 | Tuesday | L, 90–84 | No. 5 Florida | 6–5 |
| CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden | ||||
| 21 | Saturday | W, 76–74 | UCLA | 7–5 |
| ————————— | ||||
| 29 | Sunday | W, 97–81 | vs. Campbell | 8–5 |
| January | ||||
| 1 | Wednesday | L, 83–70 | at Louisville | 8–6, 1–1 |
| 4 | Saturday | W, 74–73 | at Notre Dame | 9–6, 2–1 |
| 7 | Tuesday | W, 82–67 | vs. SMU | 10–6, 3–1 |
| 11 | Saturday | W, 63–61 | at N.C. State | 11–6, 4–1 |
| 15 | Wednesday | W, 79–53 | vs. California | 12–6, 5–1 |
| 18 | Saturday | L, 72–71 | vs. Stanford | 12–7, 5–2 |
| 21 | Tuesday | 9 p.m. | at Wake Forest | ESPN |
| 25 | Saturday | 2:15 p.m. | vs. Boston College | The CW |
| 28 | Tuesday | 9 p.m. | at Pittsburgh | ESPN |
| February | ||||
| 1 | Saturday | 6:30 p.m. | at No. 3 Duke | ESPN |
| 8 | Saturday | 4 p.m. | vs. Pittsburgh | ESPN or ESPN2 |
| 10 | Monday | 7 p.m. | at Clemson | ESPN |
| 15 | Saturday | 6 p.m. | at Syracuse | ESPN |
| 19 | Wednesday | 7 p.m. | vs. N.C. State | ESPN or ESPN2 |
| 22 | Saturday | 4 p.m. | vs. Virginia | ESPN |
| 24 | Monday | 7 p.m. | at Florida State | ESPN |
| March | ||||
| 1 | Saturday | Noon | vs. Miami | ESPN or ESPN2 |
| 4 | Tuesday | 7 p.m. | at Virginia Tech | ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU |
| 8 | Saturday | 6:30 | vs. No. 3 Duke | ESPN |
| 11– 15 | Tues.–Sat. | ACC tournament Spectrum Center, Charlotte |
Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics
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