By R.L. Bynum
MILWAUKEE — Carolina nearly made up for one of its worst halves of the season, refusing to exit the NCAA tournament without a fight.
It just wasn’t enough.
The No. 11-seed Tar Heels stormed back from a 22-point deficit with a 27–10 run to come within two points with 69 seconds left, but missed golden chances at the end in a 71–64 loss Friday to No. 6-seed Ole Miss at the Fiserv Forum in the second round of the South Regional.
Carolina, which finished 23–14, got in a hole in the first half because the Heels couldn’t fight through screens on defense, find a rhythm on offense or rebound against an Ole Miss team that is 300th out of 364 teams in the country in rebounding (the Rebels had a 21–12 rebounding advantage in the first half and 40–34 for the game).
“They brought the physical, competitive fight in the first half,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “Every category, every angle, in regards to physicality, they not only won in the first half, they dominated us.”
RJ Davis also couldn’t find the perimeter stroke in his final game as a Tar Heel, admitting this shot was flat. He made only 1 of 8 3-point attempts, finishing with a team-high 15 points and three assists.
The words were slow to come in the dressing room for Davis as he processed the end of his career.
“It sucks; it hurts,” Davis said before taking off his jersey for the final time, a jersey that will be hanging from the Smith Center rafters.
“I have a lot of emotions going through my head right now. It’s hard to pinpoint just one direct emotion,” said Davis, who finishes fifth on the UNC all-time scoring list, second in 3-pointers and as the all-time leader in free-throw percentage.
RJ Davis’ notable numbers
— 175 games (ACC and UNC records; never missed a game in five seasons)
— 2,725 points (second in UNC history, third in ACC history)
—140 games scoring in double figures (ACC and UNC records)
— Scored 1,421 points over the last two seasons
— 15.6 points per game (eighth-highest by a UNC guard)
— 900 for 2,155 field goals (second-most field goals in UNC history)
— 359 for 977 from 3-point range (UNC record for made 3FGs, fourth in ACC history); 36.7% from three
— 566 for 657 at the free throw line (fourth-most made in UNC history)
— 86.1% from the free throw line (UNC record for highest percentage, 11th highest in ACC history)
— 568 assists (11th in UNC history)
“But just battling through the first half, obviously not playing a pretty good game and coming to the second half and battling all the way to the one-minute mark,” Davis said. “It’s a two-point game, it just describes our whole season from being up and down year, being a difficult year, and persevering. I think that’s the best way to put it. And we were resilient.”
Jalen Washington rebounded from struggling in the first half against Ole Miss’s physicality and made some big plays down the stretch, finishing with 8 points and 8 rebounds.
That was needed because Ven-Allen Lubin, who eventually fouled out, was on the bench for long stretches. That was damaging, considering he scored 14 points in 16 minutes.
Ole Miss made six of its first seven 3-point attempts, many times on flare screens that UNC’s couldn’t fight through. UNC was back on its heels, combatting the quickness and physicality of the Rebels.
“We were really lifeless in the first half,” Seth Trimble said. “We had no passion. We had no joy. We looked like the group we were a few months ago. We were fortunate enough to listen just to what the coaches had to say in the second half. We checked ourselves. We got checked. And everybody kind of just looked in the mirror, and that second half, it was clear we just played with passion, with joy, and we played for each other.”
Coach Davis called a timeout after a third Ole Miss 3-pointer — from former Duke forward Jaemyn Brakefield on a pick-and-pop — gave the Rebels a 9–2 lead 3:15 into the game.
“It had nothing to do with X’s and O’s,” Davis said of what happened during that timeout. “It was just a competitive fight on both ends of the floor to do the things that we needed to do and needed to execute. And that’s why I called an early timeout — to let them know that they were very far from where we needed to be in order to beat a team like Ole Miss.”
Back-to-back 3-pointers from Withers and Davis cut the lead to four, but a 6–1 Ole Miss run pushed it back to nine. Another Brakefield 3-pointer started a 6–0 run as Ole Miss opened up a 15-point lead with 9:20 left in the first half.
UNC went small with Jae’lyn Withers at the five, and that didn’t make much difference. A Jaylen Murray 3-point play in an 8–2 run shoved the Ole Miss lead to 17 with 5:08 left in the first half. Ole Miss led 44–29 at halftime, despite missing its last seven shots, after two fouls each led Lubin to sit for the last 8:49 and Trimble to sit for the last 6:58.
Coach Davis said he hadn’t seen that sort of play from his team since the Feb. 10 loss at Clemson.
“I felt like on both ends of the floor, we were going off script,” he said. “And the inconsistencies of the discipline and details that you have to have over the last two months, we’ve been sharp with it. As a result, we’ve played our best basketball.
For yet another game, Carolina seemingly flipped a switch in the second half.
“We got stops. We got rebounds. We got out in transition,” Coach Davis said. “We executed on the offensive end. I think we missed at least eight layup [attempts in the] second half. We were stronger at the hole, going to the hole. We made free throws.”
UNC fought back within 11 as Drake Powell’s 3-pointer with 10½ minutes left capped a 16–6 run. With a bucket on one end and a block on the other, Jalen Washington started an 11–0 run that sliced the lead to four with 5:07 left on a Cadeau 3-pointer, a Powell follow shot, an RJ Davis transition layup and a Washington dunk.
Coach Davis called a timeout after Sean Pedulla’s bucket, the first Ole Miss field goal in nearly six minutes, gave the Rebels a 65–59 lead with 2:56 left.
Lubin returned to score an inside bucket to start a 5–1 run, with an RJ Davis three-point play on a twisting drive cutting the lead to two. Davis winced in pain and grabbed his left hip after falling to the court at the end of the play but still made the free throw attempt.
Pedulla responded with a 3-pointer, the first of the second half by Ole Miss, as Trimble went underneath the screen, giving the Rebels a five-point lead with 52.8 seconds left. Powell missed a 3-pointer at the other end, and Pedulla put the game on a pair of free throws with 34 seconds left.
Pedulla, a transfer from Virginia Tech, led the Rebels (22–12) with 20 points and two 3-pointers, with Dre Davis adding 15 points and three 3-pointers and Brakefield netting 12 points and two 3-pointers.
NOTES — Powell and Ian Jackson said that they haven’t made decisions on their futures and Elliot Cadeau didn’t want to answer a question about his future. Trimble and Lubin said that they want to come back. … Withers hobbled off with an apparent right ankle injury with 16:02 left in his final college game … Carolina, which was 5 for 24 from 3-point range (20.8%), lost nine of 11 games this season shooting less than 30% from outside the arc. … It was the Tar Heels’ worst 3-point shooting in an NCAA tournament game since going 6 for 31 for 19.4% in 2018 against Texas A&M. … This was only the second first-round loss since UNC lost in its first game in three consecutive seasons from 1978 to 1980. The other was the 2021 loss to Wisconsin in Coach Roy Williams’ final game. … Ole Miss leads the series 2–1. … UNC finished 0–4 against the SEC. … Carolina is 134–51 all-time in the NCAA Tournament, including 8–3 under Coach Davis. … The Tar Heels dropped to 33–3 in the round of 64 (other losses were 2021 and 1999).
Ole Miss 71, UNC 64
South Regional
Tuesday’s First Four results
No. 16 Alabama St. 70, No. 16 St. Francis 68
No. 11 North Carolina 95, No. 11 San Diego State 68
First round
Thursday’s results
Lexington, Ky.
No. 1 Auburn 83, No. 16 Alabama State 63
No. 9 Creighton 89, No. 8 Louisville 75
Denver
No. 4 Texas A&M 80, No. 13 Yale 71
No. 5 Michigan 68, No. 12 UC San Diego 65
Friday’s games
Milwaukee
No. 3 Iowa St. 82, No. 14 Lipscomb 55
No. 8 Ole Miss 71, No. 11 North Carolina 64
Cleveland
No. 10 New Mexico 75, No. 7 Marquette 55
No. 2 Michigan St. 87, No. 15 Bryant 62
Second round
Saturday’s games
Lexington, Ky.
No. 4 Texas A&M (23-10) vs. No. 5 Michigan (26-9), 5:15, CBS
No. 1 Auburn (29–5) vs. No. 9 Creighton (25–10), 7:10, TBS
Sunday’s games
Milwaukee
No. 3 Iowa St. (25–9) vs. No. 8 Ole Miss (23-11), 7:45, truTV
No. 2 Michigan St. (28–6) vs. No. 10 New Mexico (27-7), 8:40, TNT
Regional semifinals
Atlanta
Friday, March 28
Saturday Lexington winners, TBA
Sunday Milwaukee winners, TBA
Regional final
Atlanta
Sunday, March 30
| Date | Month/day | Scores | Opponent/event (current ranks) | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October | ||||
| 15 | Tuesday | W, 84–76 | at No. 16 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 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. 3 Auburn | 4–2 |
| 27 | Wednesday | L, 94–91, OT | No. 7 Michigan State | 4–3 |
| December | ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge | |||
| 4 | Wednesday | L, 94–79 | vs. No. 5 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. 4 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 No. 13 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 | L, 67–66 | at Wake Forest | 12–8, 5–3 |
| 25 | Saturday | W, 102–96, OT | vs. Boston College | 13–8, 6–3 |
| 28 | Tuesday | L, 73–65 | at Pittsburgh | 13–9, 6–4 |
| February | ||||
| 1 | Saturday | L, 87–70 | at No. 1 Duke | 13–10, 6–5 |
| 8 | Saturday | W, 67–66 | vs. Pittsburgh | 14–10, 7–5 |
| 10 | Monday | L, 85–65 | at No. 10 Clemson | 14–11, 7–6 |
| 15 | Saturday | W, 88–82 | at Syracuse | 15–11, 8–6 |
| 19 | Wednesday | W, 97–73 | vs. N.C. State | 16–11, 9–6 |
| 22 | Saturday | W, 81–66 | vs. Virginia | 17–11, 10–6 |
| 24 | Monday | W, 96–85 | at Florida State | 18–11, 11–6 |
| March | ||||
| 1 | Saturday | W, 92–73 | vs. Miami | 19–11, 12–6 |
| 4 | Tuesday | W, 91–59 | at Virginia Tech | 20–11, 13–6 |
| 8 | Saturday | L, 82–69 | vs. No. 1 Duke | 20–12, 13–7 |
| ACC tournament Spectrum Center, Charlotte | ||||
| 12 | Wednesday | W, 76–56 | 2nd-round: vs. Notre Dame | 21–12 |
| 13 | Thursday | W, 68–59 | Quarterfinal: vs. Wake Forest | 22–12 |
| 14 | Friday | L, 72–71 | Semifinal: vs. No. 1 Duke | 22–13 |
| NCAA tournament | ||||
| 18 | Tuesday | W, 95–68 | First Four in Dayton, Ohio: vs. San Diego State | 23–13 |
| South Regional First round in Milwaukee | ||||
| 21 | Friday | L, 71–64 | vs. Ole Miss | 23–14 |
Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics
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