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CHAPEL HILL — Without No. 12 North Carolina’s star veteran, the Tar Heels showed plenty of heart in beating their rival with improvised lineups. Two clutch Grace Townsend free throws with 5.2 seconds left and a huge defensive stop at the end lifted the Tar Heels to a 66–65 upset of No. 10 N.C. State before a packed Carmichael Arena on Sunday, doing it without Alyssa Ustby for the last 37½ minutes.
While making the NCAA men’s tournament still is a long shot for North Carolina, the Tar Heels took the first step toward giving them a chance with their 88–82 Quad 3 victory Saturday night at Syracuse.
In a season full of games when Carolina couldn’t hold leads, the Tar Heels finally ended that trend with a game they never trailed.
CHAPEL HILL — Once No. 12 North Carolina’s defense dug in, the Tar Heels wouldn’t be denied. Virginia Tech didn’t score again after tying it with 2:51 left as the Tar Heels pulled out a 67–62 win Thursday at Carmichael Arena for UNC’s fourth straight win to end a six-game losing streak against the Hokies.
Armando Bacot had it all going Wednesday afternoon, ahead of playing in Sunday’s G League Up Next event, the week he’s featured on “The Break” docuseries.
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.
After escaping Clemson with its third consecutive win, all on the road, North Carolina has earned its highest AP Top 25 women’s basketball poll ranking in more than two years. The Tar Heels (21–4, 9–3 ACC), unbeaten on the road at 7–0, moved up one spot to No. 12 in the latest poll, released Monday, their best ranking since being No. 11 on Jan. 30, 2023. UNC, which dropped one spot in the NET rankings to 14th after Sunday’s win, has been ranked no lower than 19th this season after going unranked for the final six polls last season.
CLEMSON, S.C. — The road resembled Easy Street for No. 13 North Carolina most of the season until the Tar Heels veered into a path full of potholes Sunday, including a self-inflicted one at the end. The Tigers had lost seven of their previous eight games but didn’t play like it. Add to that UNC’s offensive struggles and poor shooting, and it produced a much more challenging-than-expected 53–51 victory at Littlejohn Coliseum.
CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina may have kept its hopes alive of making the NCAA tournament with a Quad 2 home 67–66 victory Saturday over Pittsburgh, but the win did little to bolster the team’s resume, and there was bad NET ranking news. The Tar Heels (14–10, 7–5 ACC), who fell to 44th in the NET ranking after the loss at Duke a week earlier, slipped to 45th even though they didn’t play last week and stayed at 45th after the victory.
The Brooklyn Nets’ Cameron Johnson, on pace for career-highs in several categories, will be one of eight players in the 3-Point Contest on NBA All-Star weekend. Johnson scored 17 points and three 3-pointers in Brooklyn’s 119–112 Wednesday home loss to Washington in his return after missing six games with a right ankle sprain.
With North Carolina’s chances of making the NCAA men’s tournament looking dire, a stretch of two games in three days beginning Saturday is crucial. Only 14.4% of bracket projections listed on Bracket Matrix (13 of 90) have the Tar Heels (13–10, 6–5 ACC) in the field 40 days away from Selection Sunday, with 12 of them predicting the Tar Heels as a No. 11 seed, which would mean a trip to Dayton, Ohio, for the First Four.
North Carolina’s men’s basketball program will join UNC’s football program and many other basketball programs in adding a general manager, Coach Hubert Davis said on Monday night. During the “Hubert Davis Live” radio show, the fourth-year head coach said that a bigger staff is essential and that “we’re going to hire a GM.”
With RJ Davis as the only current player who was part of North Carolina’s 2022 turnaround from February struggles to the national championship game, Coach Hubert Davis says he doesn’t mention that season to the team.
Even with UNC (13–10, 6–5 ACC) mired in a stretch of four losses in the last five games heading into Saturday’s 4 p.m. home game (ESPN2) with Pittsburgh (14–7, 5–5), he said that he emphasizes that there is plenty of time to turn the season around.
Caleb Love and Kerwin Walton had big games Saturday to help their streaking teams earn road victories, while Dontrez Styles had his best game of the season in a loss for slumping N.C. State and Ali Zelaya had her career-best game to finish a monster weekend. Both Love and Dawson Garcia hit memorable recent buzzer-beaters.
Alyssa Ustby did it all for No. 15 North Carolina to help the Tar Heels complete a huge 2–0 week in California. Ustby scored 16 points, tied her career-high with four 3-pointers and made a crucial defensive play at the end to help UNC hold on for a 69–67 victory Sunday at Maples Pavilion in Palo Alto, Calif., after Stanford erased a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit.
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