****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
NEW YORK, NY – In a battle of top-10 teams Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, No. 9 North Carolina got a taste of what No. 5 and defending national champion Connecticut is all about.
The Tar Heels’ last lead was 8-7 after a layup by Armando Bacot 3:17 into the contest. The Huskies scored 70 seconds later and never trailed again. Carolina tied the score at 23-23, but never regained the lead here in the annual Jimmy V Classic.
UNC was done in by multiple things, among them rebounding, trouble with defensive switches, and the Heels appeared to run out of gas.
Carolina cut the margin to 65-60 with 11:02 remaining, and after getting a defensive stop, missed three shots right at the rim as UConn finally grabbed a rebound leading to a run out dunk on the other end making it 67-60. UNC missed 14 of 16 shots in the stretch as UConn rolled up an 18-6 run essentially ending the game.
“We had good looks, we just didn’t make them,” UNC Coach Hubert Davis said about the decisive stretch. “We got it to five and I can't remember the sequence, I feel like we missed two or three good looks. And then we got it (down) to six, and then we missed a couple like two or three good looks. They were able to get the rebound and capitalize on the offensive end.”
RJ Davis led Carolina with 26 points, while Harrison Ingram added 20 and Armando Bacot registered the 73rd double-double of his career, scoring 13 points and grabbing 13 rebounds.
UNC dropped to 7-2 overall, while UConn improved to 8-1.
Here are 5 Takeaways from Carolina’s loss to Connecticut:
