It seemed fitting that a defensive battle would come down to the last possession with North Carolina at NC State at the Lenovo Center on Saturday.
In a game where neither team could completely take control, it proved to be the Tar Heels who executed better down the stretch in a 63-61 victory.
NC State senior shooting guard Marcus Hill tied it up at 61-61 with 1:29 left in the contest, and North Carolina responded with two crucial plays. Sophomore point guard Elliot Cadeau drove and dished to junior center Jalen Washington for the dunk with 24 seconds left to give the Tar Heels a 63-61 lead. Washington then blocked NCSU senior guard Jayden Taylor’s drive in the waning seconds to preserve the victory.
Related link — Box score: North Carolina 63, NC State 61 |
Video reel: NC State seniors Ben Middlebrooks, Marcus Hill after UNC loss
“Let me get this out of the way. I'm a little disappointed at the end of the game that they didn't at least review it,” said Keatts on whether Washington committed goaltending. “I mean, we've had probably three or four goaltendings in the game, and I thought before the referees would run off the floor that they would review it. That was my disappointment.”
NC State fell to 9-7 overall and 2-3 in the ACC, and play at Virginia Tech on Wednesday. UNC improved to 11-6 overall and 4-1 in the league.
Keatts was good with Taylor’s shot at the end. NC State doesn’t have that one go-to scorer like in year’s past, so big shots has sometimes been by committee.
“We were running our push action and they did a good job of icing us, pushing us to his left, and I thought JT really got a good look off of it,” Keatts said. “We will build. We'll get better from it.”
UNC tried to deliver the knockout blow — with a little help from NC State — who committed some costly turnovers. The Tar Heels went on a 16-7 run to open a 56-47 lead with 5:53 left in the game.
NC State wasn’t going to go down without a fight and responded in a big way. Cadeau had back-to-back turnovers and that helped spark a 10-2 Wolfpack run to cut the Tar Heels lead to 58-57 with 3:13 left. Hill scored six points during the run and led the Wolfpack with 20 points.
"It was big, I feel like we just messed up a few plays, but a lot of that fight we had came back for us, that's hard to do," Hill said. "It became clear that little things like key turnovers were going to add up to someone losing a close game."
Keatts was irked that the Wolfpack allowed 16 fastbreak points in the game, some of which came after careless turnovers.
“We don't take moral victories in this program. We had some turnovers that they were live ball turnovers that caused – they gave them some easy baskets. We got to be better at that.”
After a woeful first half of shooting, the Wolfpack turned it around and shot 60 percent from the field after halftime to get in position for what could have been a big victory.
“If you came to see a good game, you saw a great game,” Keatts said. “Two teams that really like to score the basketball, and it turned out to be a really good defensive game. I thought we were completely locked in.”
Defensive intensity, hustle and poor shooting marred the first half for both teams, with North Carolina leading 26-20 at halftime.
NC State in particular only mustered 20 points, even after grabbing 12 offensive rebounds. The Wolfpack went a miserable 9 of 40 from the field, which included having one assist and going 1 of 12 from the three-point line. With a combined seven fouls called, there wasn’t opportunities at the free-throw line either, with the Wolfpack making the lone free throw of the first half.
North Carolina was slightly better at 39 percent from the field in going 12 of 31. Freshmen wings Ian Jackson and Drake Powell made the lone three-pointers.
NC State played without injured senior center Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, which meant that senior center Ben Middlebrooks was the lone Wolfpack player 6-10 or taller. He scrambled and was the epitome of the defensive hustle mentioned. He had the unusual stat line of three points, 10 rebounds (five on the offensive boards) and two blocked shots in the first 20 minutes.
"Every little small mistake can cost you, every bucket, you got to lock in," Middlebrooks said. "You can't make any errors. A couple of those slip-ups hurt us in the end there. We ended up with that little two-point deficit."
Another defensive standout was Taylor. He went scoreless in the first half, but also held UNC star senior guard R.J. Davis to six points. Davis finished going 5 of 13 from the field for 11 points and that continued the multi-year trend of Davis being forced to earn every point he could.
The action on Davis was not quite the same on Jackson, who came into the game rolling. He entered the contest averaging 23.6 points per game over his last five games. Jackson owned the right corner to score 21 points and shot 5 of 8 on three-pointers to continue his hot ways.
Washington added 11 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks. The Tar Heels finished the game shooting 43.3 percent from the field.
Having a festive and mostly full Lenovo Center has been few and far between this season. The UNC game and the narrow 63-59 loss to Texas on Dec. 4 showed what the energy in the building could be, and how defense could be this squad’s identity.
“Our crowd was tremendous, especially knowing that we were going to have some ice and snow,” Keatts said. “I thought everybody really showed up.
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