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DURHAM — After a historic Carolina victory over No. 4 Duke that can only be topped by a Final Four win against the Blue Devils, the Tar Heels guaranteed that they won’t have to deal with their rivals until the ACC Tournament final. Before UNC’s impressive 94–81 victory Saturday to ruin Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium, a semifinal matchup in Brooklyn appeared likely.
DURHAM — Many nights, the question is when or if Caleb Love will flip the offensive switch and whether it will be enough. It came late Monday and pushed Carolina to an overtime win over Syracuse. Saturday at Cameron Indoor Stadium, that switch flipped on Love’s jumper with 12:33 left after hitting only 1 of his first 12 shots. He scored nine points in the next three minutes to help Carolina take control before going on to a 94–81 upset Saturday of No. 4 Duke
Cameron Johnson did it all for league-leading Phoenix on Friday night, scoring 38 points and nine 3-pointers, both career-highs, in only 28 minutes off the bench. He banked in a game-winning, buzzer-beating 3 to push the host Suns to a 115–114 victory over New York. Johnson joined Portland’s Damian Lillard (2019) as the only players in NBA history to hit a game-winning 3-pointer with at least nine 3s in a game. Johnson’s previous career-high was 24 points but he scored 21 Friday in the fourth quarter alone.
GREENSBORO — Kids can lighten up even the most frustrating days and Coach Courtney Banghart’s three children soothed her and the team after No. 16 Carolina’s unexpected early exit from the ACC Tournament. With one seven-year-old twin son, Eli, on her lap, the other, Tucker, on Alyssa Ustby’s lap and Banghart’s six-year-old daughter Gray on Deja Kelly’s lap, the coach and players talked in the postgame press conference about how Friday’s quarterfinal game with No. 21 Virginia Tech went awry in overtime for an 87–80 quarterfinals loss.
It was a big night in Texas for a pair of Tar Heels as Harrison Barnes scored 27 points in Sacramento’s victory at San Antonio and Reggie Bullock had a good all-around game in Dallas’ home victory over Golden State. Barnes collected four 3-pointers, five rebounds and two assists while making 11 of his career-high-tying 14 free-throw attempts in the Kings’ 115–112 win. The victory capped a crazy 24 hours for Sacramento full of plenty of frustrations.
GREENSBORO — The obvious goal for No. 16 North Carolina in Friday’s quarterfinal matchup with No. 21 Virginia Tech is to make it more like their first regular-season game and less like the rematch. The No. 4-seed Tar Heels (23–5) blew out the No. 5-seed Hokies 71–46 on Jan. 6 in Chapel Hill with a potent transition game and suffocating defense. In Blacksburg on Feb. 13, though, hot-shooting Virginia Tech (22–8) won a much-more physical game 66–61.
GREENSBORO — As expected, No. 16-ranked North Carolina will have to deal with No. 21 Virginia Tech and ACC Player of the Year Elizabeth Kitley in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals.
The No. 5-seed Hokies (22–8), who easily dispatched No. 13-seed Clemson 82–60 in Thursday’s second round, face No. 4-seed UNC (23–5) at 11 a.m. Friday (regional sports networks) after the teams split two regular-season meetings.
Without Phoenix’s All-Star backcourt, some would have figured that the Suns might have a tough time winning on Wednesday night. But they didn’t figure Cameron Johnson into the equation. After the Suns has lost two consecutive games with Johnson in the starting lineup, he came off the bench to score 20 points, four 3-pointers and dish out four assists as they blew out Portland 120–90 at home for their 50th win of the season.
CHAPEL HILL — Someone in the UNC basketball family had a decision to make. Will he return for another season or move on to a new chapter in life? Charlie Jones, the sentinel guarding the tunnel at Carmichael Auditorium and then the Smith Center for 38 years, had been mulling his future as the official monitor of the inner sanctum of Carolina basketball. Jones was still uncertain as he worked his last shift of the season Monday on senior night for Brady Manek, Leaky Black and Ryan McAdoo.
At ACC Tipoff in October, North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart told a group of ACC Network announcers before going on the air that people were underestimating the potential of her third Tar Heels team. “I said to the crew that was at the desk, ‘We’re better than y’all think,’ ” Banghart said, figuring that they didn’t know the impact of graduate transfer guards Carlie Littlefield and Eva Hodgson. ” ‘Y’all don’t know Eva and Carlie. Y’all don’t know how much better my sophomores have gotten.’ I did think we were better than the credit we were getting.”
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