By R.L. Bynum

CLEMSON, S.C. — North Carolina’s early-season pattern of falling behind by double digits in the first half is back, dooming the Tar Heels’ NCAA tournament chances with another embarrassing effort.

UNC appeared to have buried that issue after losing Dec. 4 to Alabama. The only two times it’s happened since then have come in the last three games. Like at Duke nine days earlier, Carolina couldn’t dig itself out of the hole, this time in an 85–65 Monday loss to No. 23 Clemson at Littlejohn Coliseum.

“I’m not necessarily mad that we lost this game,” said Seth Trimble, who had 12 points and four rebounds. “I’m pretty upset with the fact that we got bullied today. I think some guys responded. But it takes all 15 of us, and we just didn’t have it.”

UNC (14–11, 7–6 ACC) fell to 1–10 in Quad 1 games and has lost five of the last seven games.

The difference is that in the early season, the Tar Heels showed fight after falling into deep holes. That was absent Monday, even with the NCAA hopes hanging in the balance.

“I thought guys understood what this game meant for us,” Trimble said. “I thought they knew how good this Clemson team was. But I guess not.”

A lack of effort combined with 4 of 19 shooting from 3-point range (the fourth-worst this season at 21.1%) and 5 of 11 shooting (a season-worst 45.5%) at the free-throw line never allowed Carolina to make a run.

After Duke reeled off a 33–7 first-half run, Clemson (20–5, 12–1 ACC) overwhelmed the Tar Heels with a 28–10 flurry before halftime, as both games were decided early. Unlike against Duke, there was no big second-half garbage-time run from UNC.

“We got knocked down today, but we’ve got to get back up, and we’ve got to move forward, and we have to competitively fight,” Coach Hubert Davis said.

“[Playing with a sense of urgency] doesn’t guarantee you that things will work out your way. But, without it, you have no chance,” Coach Davis said before pausing for several seconds. “So, from that standpoint … it’s just sad.”

RJ Davis, one of three players who has consistently brought energy to every game of late — along with Trimble and Drake Powell — knocked in 18 points but didn’t get much help. Elliot Cadeau avoided foul trouble and finished with 11 points and six assists but had six turnovers.

“I just think they were the better team tonight. They were the more hungry team, and they played like they wanted more than us,” RJ Davis said. “I’m not gonna sit here and say that we lost our fight because we did show the fight throughout the rest of the game. It just has to be consistent, and that’s just the frustrating part about it. Just can’t get over that hump and continue to show we want it more.”

The game slipped away after UNC went up 23–21 on a Davis jumper with 9:23 left in the first half, and Clemson put together its big run.

“I just felt like every effort, physicality part about the game from that stretch they dominated,” Coach Davis said. “From a defensive standpoint — very difficult. They were physical, getting us off of our screens, off of our cuts. On the offensive end, they were able to run their offense like they do in shootaround. They’re a very good team, and they played tonight hungry and in every aspect of the game, and I thought that was the deciding factor.”

A season-long issue again burned Carolina: a daunting size disparity. Coach Davis tried to combat it by starting Jae’Lyn Withers and Ven-Allen Lubin, but that only helped so much. Davis said a big factor in that decision was the strength under the boards of Ian Schieffelin, who pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds.

“We’re not very big. We’re a small team. We start a really small lineup,” Davis said, explaining the change. “And I just didn’t think that would put us in a position rebounding to start the game [to play the usual lineup], and we got off to a good start.”

Clemson dominated under the boards 41–28, tying the Hawai’i game for the worst rebounding disparity this season.

Viktor Lakhin was huge in more ways than one. The 6–11 Cincinnati transfer came into the game with 15 3-pointers for the season, but fired in a season-high four 3s (all in the first half) after not attempting one against Duke. He burned the Tar Heels on pick-and-pop plays, scoring 20 of his game-high 22 points in the first half.

“A couple of those 3s came off of offensive rebounds as a result of us not boxing out on ball screens,” Coach Davis said. “They got really too much depth. And so, when you get too much depth in terms of recovering to him, it’s just too long of a closeout.”

Perimeter defense continues to be a huge issue. Since the second half of the Boston College game — a stretch of 4½ games — opponents are 49 of 102 from 3-point range (48%).

After carrying UNC through a seven-game stretch with six games of at least 20 points, Ian Jackson continues to be snake-bit of late. He is 6 of 27 from the floor in the last four games, 5 of 26 from 3-point range in the last seven games, and has not made a field goal in the last two games (0 of 11).

“He’s a really great player,” RJ Davis said. “I just think he’s trying to find his groove, a rhythm a little bit. Teams just play Ian a little bit differently now. But he’ll find his groove to help us.”

An example of a UNC player lacking effort was when a ball was tipped out beyond half-court during a Carolina possession. Jackson didn’t hustle to the ball as it went out of bounds a few feet away from him, and he was immediately taken out of the game.

In 16 minutes coming off the bench for the first time since the UCLA game on Dec. 21, Jackson missed all eight shots from the floor, including a couple of layup attempts and three 3-point attempts, and scored three points, with two rebounds and two steals.

An early 7–0 run gave UNC a four-point lead that vanished after back-to-back Clemson 3-pointers. After the teams traded 10–2 runs, it was all Clemson for the last nine minutes of the second half. Consecutive Clemson 3-pointers started its big run, leading to a 49–33 halftime lead.

It only got worse in the second half, with Clemson opening up a 26-point lead with a 17–7 run, and UNC never got closer than 19 points in the final eight minutes.

NOTES — Carolina visits Syracuse at 6 p.m. Saturday (ESPN) for a Quad 3 game. The Orange (11–13, 5–8), who beat Boston College 95–86 in triple overtime on Saturday, visit Miami at 7 p.m. Tuesday (ACC Network Extra). … UNC fell to a season-worst 51st in the NET rankings after Monday’s loss at Clemson. Its previous low was 47th on Jan. 1 … Withers started for the first time since the Nov. 27 loss to Michigan State in the Maui Invitational, which was the last time neither Jackson nor Powell started. … Clemson honored the 1990 ACC championship team at halftime. … This is the first time Clemson has beaten Duke and UNC at home since 1990. It was the first time that’s happened in a three-day span since the Tigers beat Duke 79–53 on Jan. 30, 2020, and UNC 63–50 on Feb. 2, 2020, with both games also at Littlejohn Coliseum. … UNC leads the series 136–25, including 42–19 at Clemson. … Clemson played its walk-ons at the end (possibly a first against UNC), something Carolina hasn’t done since the Jan. 15 home victory over California.

No. 23 Clemson 85, UNC 65

Team	League	Overall	NET*
No. 3 Duke	0–0	11–0	2
California	0–0	10–1	63
No. 12 North Carolina	0–0	10–1	15
No. 23 Virginia	0–0	9–1	21
Miami	0–0	10–2	33
Virginia Tech	0–0	10–2	58
No. 11 Louisville	0–0	9–2	17
SMU	0–0	9–2	43
Stanford	0–0	8–2	98
Clemson	0–0	9–3	32
Notre Dame	0–0	9–3	65
Wake Forest	0–0	9–3	59
N.C. State	0–0	8–4	34
Georgia Tech	0–0	7–4	189
Syracuse	0–0	7–4	96
Pittsburgh	0–0	6–6	154
Boston College	0–0	5–6	177
Florida State	0–0	5–6	148

* — Through Wednesday games
Tuesday’s results
No. 12 North Carolina 77, East Tennessee State 58
No. 3 Duke 97, Lipscomb 73
No. 20 Tennessee 83, No. 11 Louisville 62
Dayton 97, Florida State 69
Clemson 68, South Carolina 61
Miami 98, Florida International 81
Georgia Tech 87, Marist 76
Wednesday’s results
N.C. State 108, Texas Southern 72
Pittsburgh 103, Binghamton 6
Syracuse 76, Mercyhurst 62
Wake Forest 71, Longwood 68
UT Arlington at Stanford, 10 p.m., ACCN Extra
Friday’s games
Mississippi Valley State at Florida State, 7 p.m., ACCN Extra
Morgan State at California, 10 p.m., ACCN Extra
Saturday’s games
Montana at No. 11 Louisville, noon, ACCN Extra
Lafayette at Georgia Tech, 2 p.m., ACCN Extra
Elon at Virginia Tech, 2 p.m., ACCN Extra
Ohio State vs. No. 12 North Carolina at CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta, 3 p.m., CBS
Northeastern at Syracuse, 4 p.m., ACCN Extra
Maryland at No. 23 Virginia, 6 p.m., ESPN
No. 3 Duke at No. 16 Texas Tech, 8 p.m., ESPN
Stanford at Colorado, 8 p.m., ESPNU
Sunday’s games
Penn State vs. Pittsburgh in Hershey, Pa., noon, Big Ten Network
Ole Miss vs. N.C. State in Greensboro, 1 p.m., ESPN
No. 13 Vanderbilt at Wake Forest, 1 p.m., The CW
Purdue Ft. Wayne at Notre Dame, 2 p.m., ACCN Extra
Central Arkansas at SMU, 2 p.m., ACCN Extra
Cincinnati vs. Clemson in Greenville, S.C., 3 p.m., ESPN
North Florida at Miami, 4 p.m., ACC Network
Columbia at California, 5 p.m., ACCN Extra
Monday’s games
American at Virginia, 6 p.m., ACCN Extra
Jacksonville at Florida State, 7 p.m., ACCN Extra
Stonehill at Syracuse, 7 p.m., ACCN Extra
Fairleigh Dickinson at Boston College, 7 p.m., ACCN Extra
East Carolina at No. 12 North Carolina, 8 p.m., ACC Network

Date	Month/day	Time	Opponent/event (current ranks)	TV/ record
	October
24	Friday	L, 78–76	vs. No. 10 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. 17 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. 9 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. East Tennessee State	10–1
			CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta
20	Saturday	3 p.m.	vs. Ohio State	CBS
			—————————
22	Monday	8 p.m.	vs. East Carolina	ACCN
30	Tuesday	7 p.m.	vs. Florida State	ESPN2
	January
3	Saturday	2:15	at SMU	The CW
10	Saturday	6 p.m.	vs. Wake Forest	ACCN
14	Wednesday	9 p.m.	at Stanford	ACCN
17	Saturday	4 p.m.	at California	ACCN
21	Wednesday	7 p.m.	vs. Notre Dame	ESPN2
24	Saturday	2 or 2:30	at No. 23 Virginia	ESPN or ESPNU
31	Saturday	2 p.m.	at Georgia Tech	ACCN
	February
2	Monday	7 p.m.	vs. Syracuse	ESPN
7	Saturday	6:30	vs. No. 3 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. 11 Louisville	ESPN
28	Saturday	6:30 or 8:30	vs. Virginia Tech	ESPN or ESPN2
	March
3	Tuesday	7 p.m.	vs. Clemson	ESPN or ESPN2
7	Saturday	6:30	at No. 3 Duke	ESPN
10–14	Tues.-Sat.	ACC tournament	Spectrum Center, Charlotte