By R.L. Bynum

GREENSBORO — Her North Carolina teammates surrounded Reniya Kelly in celebration after the No. 14 Tar Heels used impressive grit to get revenge against Florida State.

No. 5-seed Carolina is in the ACC tournament semifinals for the first time in 11 years and the 29th time in program history and they wouldn’t be there without her, or tough defense on Seminoles star Ta’Niya Latson.

After missing three games, Kelly hit two huge jumpers in the last 64 seconds as the Tar Heels held on for a 60–56 Quad 1 victory Friday over the Seminoles at First Horizon Coliseum to put them in good position to be first- and second-round hosts in the NCAA tournament.

UNC (27–6), which meets No. 7-ranked and No. 1-seed N.C. State, 73–72 winners over Georgia Tech, in the first semifinal at noon Saturday (ESPN2), won despite going nearly five minutes without a field goal in the fourth quarter.

“Every team at this point in the season has their identity, and there’s a toughness to this group and a togetherness to this group and a courage to this group that was on display,” UNC coach Courtney Banghart said.

Kelly shook off the rust that led to her missing nine of her first 12 shots before the two late buckets and scored six of her 11 points in the final quarter.

She was glad to play 27 minutes and not have to watch another game from the bench.

“Oh, it was very depressing, to say the least,” said Kelly, a sophomore who was dealing with a right knee issue after she missed several games her freshman year with a concussion. “I really want to play with my team and go to war with them every night. Just to be on the bench was really sad for me, but I did cheer them on every time. I’ve been working to try and get back, and now I’m back, and it’s time to win games.”

They won, thanks to Lexi Donarski and Indya Nivar helping UNC hold Latson — the nation’s leading scorer who was averaging 25.4 points entering the game — to 13 points on 3 of 14 shooting.

“I wish we could have kept her off the free-throw line a little bit more,” said Donarski, who led the team in scoring, along with Alyssa Usbty, with 12 points, “but I feel like we did a good job forcing her into tough shots and into shots that were contested, and not just straight-line drives to the basket.”

It took a team effort to stop Latson, though, and the team effort went a long way toward holding her down.

“[We] asked our bigs to sort of be really crowdy, which meant our backside had to be really present,” Banghart said. “Then we needed to chest up. They do a lot of slipping, and so if you get to the ball-screen coverage before the ball screen, you’re going to be in trouble, and our guys just were totally locked in.”

It was yet another outstanding defensive effort for UNC. It held Florida State (23–8), which entered the game averaging 88.2 points, to a season-low point total, moving to 25–0 when holding opponents to 67 points or fewer.

Ustby had another stat-stuffing game, with 18 rebounds, five assists, a steal and a block for her 10th double-double of the season and 48th of her career, becoming the program’s all-time rebounding leader. She and Maria Gakdeng (7 points, 16 rebounds) had career-high rebounding totals to help UNC win the boards 53–40. 

But Ustby, the ACC All-Defensive pick, said defense was the difference.

“Our defensive effort really came from our preparation and our individual buy-in,” she said. “I felt like we were always on the same page defensively, and when our five are feeling like that, we are really a hard team to score on. We also carry a lot of pride with our defense.

“We don’t take it lightly when somebody scores on us,” Ustby said. “We’re frustrated. We’re going to figure out why they scored on us and we’re going to fix it the next time down. That’s just how competitive this group is.”

Stopping Latson was one goal and another was avenging UNC’s 86–84 home loss Jan. 26 to the Seminoles, when she faked out two Tar Heels defenders and scored at the buzzer against two others to win the game.

The Tar Heels were thinking about that game a lot, as they were playing their second game in as many days.

“That’s at home, and that’s a game-winner after we thought we had played well enough to win, and we totally missed our coverage on that last possession,” Banghart said. “So the revenge was that it sits in their mouth. What did I do? I just sort of look Alyssa in the eye and I say, ‘Do you remember?’ That’s all you have to say to Alyssa, and then she takes care of the rest.”

Ustby said that the loss has stuck with the team ever since.

“To get another opportunity at a team like that, that’s something that we really look forward to, and we’re not going to take that opportunity for granted,” Ustby said. “Call it smoke, call it whatever, but we did have a lot of confidence because we knew our preparation would help us take care of it.”

Nivar continues to stack outstanding games, finishing with 10 points, 8 rebounds, four assists and two steals. In recent games, she’s produced points driving to the basket.

“I think it’s mentality. I feel like they were there. I just wasn’t being aggressive earlier on in the season,” Nivar said. “What I’ve been working on these past couple weeks was finding those lanes and then being able to convert with them.”

After spotting FSU an early 4–0 lead, UNC scored the next 10 points, starting a 17–2 run — finishing with a 3-pointer and layup by Ustby — to take an 11-point lead. UNC led 22–12 after one quarter on Gadeng’s layup with two seconds left.

Carolina went cold — going 7½ minutes without a field goal — and Florida State surged after the opening quarter, as the Seminoles went on a 15–1 run to take a four-point lead.

Layups by Nivar and Donarski tied it with 1:50 left in the first half, but inside buckets by Malea Williams and Sydney Bowles gave FSU a 31–27 halftime lead. UNC was 2 of 18 (11.1%) from the floor in the second quarter while FSU was 8 of 14 (57.1%).

Carolina retook the lead with the first seven points after halftime, going on a 9–1 run to lead by five on a Nivar jumper with 5:43 left in the third quarter. FSU cut the lead to two but UNC took a 46–42 lead into the final quarter.

FSU tied it with a 6–2 run to start the fourth quarter and went up by two, but an Ustby bucket and Kelly driving jumper put UNC up by four with 3:53 left. Latson’s transition layup tied it with 2:11 left, the Noles’ first field goal in more than six minutes.

Kelly’s baseline drive with 1:04 left put UNC up by two and Ustby got a huge rebound at the other end after center Makayla Timpson missed on a drive. Kelly hit a jumper with 20.4 seconds left. Latson’s two free throws with 11 seconds cut it to two.

But FSU had fouls to give and had to foul three times to get UNC to the line. With 7.3 seconds left, Lanie Grant put the game away with two free throws.

“My teammates came up to me, and they were like, ‘You’ve got this,’ ” Grant said. “ ‘We believe in you.’ All my coaches. Courtney wasn’t even entertaining the notion that I wouldn’t make them, so everyone believed in me. They had confidence in me. I had confidence in myself. So, it was pretty easy to step up and knock them down.”

Timpson had a monster game with 15 points, 8 rebounds and 8 blocks, with O’Mariah Gordon adding 12 points.

NOTES — UNC and N.C. State have split 14 previous ACC tournament meetings, with the Wolfpack winning 77–64 in the last meeting in the second round of the 2018 tournament. … They last met in the semifinals in 2006 when the Tar Heels won 90–69. … UNC beat N.C. State 66–65 on Feb. 16 in Chapel Hill in the only regular-season meeting playing without Ustby for all but the game’s first two minutes. That was the Wolfpack’s last loss. … Carolina’s five points in the second quarter was a season-low for any quarter, topping the previous low of nine points in the third quarter of the Feb. 27 68–53 loss at Duke. … This is UNC’s first semifinal appearance since 2014 (when Grant was six years old) after losing its previous four quarterfinal games. In 2014, the Tar Heels beat Maryland 73–70 in the quarterfinals, only to lose 66–61 to Duke in the semifinals. … … UNC’s last ACC title was in 2008 when the Tar Heels beat Duke 86–73 in the final. … UNC is 3–7 in the Greensboro Coliseum Complex under Banghart.

---

No. 14 UNC 60, No. 22 FSU 56

---

ACC tournament

First Horizon Coliseum | Greensboro
Wednesday’s first round
No. 12 Boston College 76, No. 13 Syracuse 73
No. 10 Virginia 64, No. 15 Pittsburgh 50
No. 14 Clemson 63, No. 11 Stanford 46
Thursday’s second round
No. 5 (No. 14 ranked) North Carolina 78, Boston College 71
No. 8 Georgia Tech 72, No. 9 Virginia Tech 57
No. 7 California 75, Virginia 58
No. 6 Louisville 70, Clemson 68, OT
Friday’s quarterfinals
North Carolina 60, No. 4 (No. 22 ranked) Florida State 56
No. 1 (No. 7 ranked) N.C. State 73, Georgia Tech 72
No. 2 (No. 6 ranked) Notre Dame 73, California 64
No. 3 (No. 11 ranked) Duke 61, Louisville 48
Saturday’s semifinals
N.C. State 66, North Carolina 55
Duke 61, Notre Dame 56
Sunday’s championship
Duke 76, N.C. State 62

---

Date	Day/month	Time	Opponent/event (current ranks)	TV/ record
	October
30	Thursday	L, 91–82	No. 3 South Carolina in Atlanta	Exhib.
	November
3	Monday	W, 90–42	vs. N.C. Central	1–0
6	Thursday	W, 71–37	vs. Elon	2–0
			WBCA Challenge Las Vegas
13	Thursday	L, 78–60	vs. No. 4 UCLA	2–1
15	Saturday	W, 82–68	vs. Fairfield	3–1
			———————————
20	Thursday	W, 85–50	at N.C. A&T	4–1
23	Sunday	W, 94–48	vs. UNCG	5–1
			Cancun Challenge Cancun, Mexico
27	Thursday	W, 83–48	vs. South Dakota St.	6–1
28	Friday	W, 85–73	vs. Kansas State	7–1
29	Saturday	W, 80–63	vs. Columbia	8–1
	December		ACC/SEC Women’s Challenge
4	Thursday	W, 79–64	at No. 2 Texas	8–2
			———————————
7	Sunday	W, 82–40	vs. Boston Univ.	9–2
14	Sunday	L, 76–66, OT	vs. No. 16 Louisville	9–3, 0–1 ACC
17	Wednesday	W, 84–34	vs. UNCW	10–3
21	Sunday	Noon	vs. Charleston Southern	ACCN Extra
29	Monday	8 p.m.	at Boston College	ACCN
	January
1	Thursday	Noon	vs. California	ACCN
4	Sunday	1 p.m.	vs. Stanford	ESPN
11	Sunday	1 p.m.	at No. 20 Notre Dame	ESPN
15	Thursday	7 p.m.	vs. Miami	ACCN Extra
18	Sunday	2 p.m.	at Florida State	The CW
22	Thursday	8 p.m.	at Georgia Tech	ACCN
25	Sunday	2 p.m.	vs. Syracuse	The CW
	February
2	Monday	6 p.m.	at N.C. State	ESPN2
5	Thursday	7 p.m.	vs. Clemson	ACCN
8	Sunday	2 p.m.	vs. Wake Forest	ACCN
12	Thursday	6 p.m.	vs. SMU	ACCN
15	Sunday	1 p.m.	at Duke	ABC
19	Thursday	6 p.m.	at Virginia Tech	ACCN
22	Sunday	Noon	vs. Pittsburgh	ACCN
26	Thursday	7 p.m.	at Virginia	ACCN Extra
	March
1	Sunday	Noon	vs. Duke	ESPN
			ACC tournament
4–8	Wed.-Sun		Gas South Arena, Duluth, Ga.
			NCAA tournament
20–24	Fri.-Mon.		First, second rounds
27–30	Fri.-Mon.		Regionals Fort Worth, Texas, and Sacramento, Calif.
	April
3, 5	Fri., Sun		Final Four Phoenix

Photo courtesy of the ACC