CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina let one get away Saturday night, dropping a 71-70 decision to Boston College inside the Smith Center in a game that saw Cole Anthony’s return to the court after missing two months with a knee injury.

The Tar Heels used an 11-0 run in the second half to turn the game into a see-saw affair, but missed free throws, poor execution late and the inability to get stops did them in.

UNC fell to 10-11 overall and 3-7 in the ACC while the Eagles improved to 11-11 and 5-6.

Here are 5 Takeaways from UNC loss to Boston College:

Carolina had a chance to win the game on its final possession and had the ball in the hands of the player it wanted attempting a game-winning shot. So, as Cole Anthony brought the ball up the court something went wrong. Missed timeout, missed screen, missed read?

Missed shot, and the Tar Heels lost.

“I made a bad decision,” Anthony said about the disjointed looking play. “Should have called a timeout, there was a bunch of other things I could have done. I let me team down with that play. It was my fault.”

But it wasn’t just that play in which the Tar Heels looked completely out of sorts. Two possessions earlier, sandwiching a converted runner by Anthony giving the Heels a 70-69 lead with 30 seconds to play, the Heels had another bungled possession.

BC went into a zone – it appeared it was a 2-3 - yet it also appeared a few of the Tar Heels kept running their man offense for part of the possession. Whatever it was, the possession ended with 1:06 remaining and Anthony attempting an uncomfortable looking shot from around 25 feet which hit nothing.

The BC zone clearly affected the Tar Heels.

“Just didn’t make the right read and that always hurts you,” UNC Coach Roy Williams said. “But, again, give them some credit. They changed the defense they hadn’t played almost the whole game... just two bad offensive possessions for us and we didn’t get a single stop.”

Carolina’s shooting woes returned in a big, bad way Saturday night. The Tar Heels were 9-for-30 in the first half and 22-for-61 for the game. What’s amazing is they actually had a stretch in the second half in which they hit 11 of 19. But going 22-for-61 means they were just 11-for-42 otherwise.

They were worse on the night from the perimeter. The Tar Heels made 4 of 19 shots from 3-point range, which is a paltry 21.1 percent. UNC entered the game having made 29.7 percent from the perimeter, and as poor as that number is, it would have been welcomed in this game by Williams.

“We shot 36 percent, that’s about what we shoot all frickin’ year,” Williams said.

Whether it was guarding the driver, defending the baseline, recovering or switching, the Heels were a bit slow. They had one solid stretch defensively, but otherwise just didn’t appear to have it on that end of the floor.

BC entered the game ranked No. 325 in the nation shooting just 40.2 percent, but the Eagles converted 26 of 56 field goal attempts, which was good for 46.4 percent. In addition, BC entered at No. 319 shooting from the perimeter at 29.9 percent but was 7-for-18 (38.9 percent) in the Dean Dome.

BC hit some tough shots, but many others weren’t defended at a level needed for UNC to notch an ACC win.

The Tar Heels made all 10 free throws they attempted in the first half, a reason they were so close at the intermission, but they were just 11-for-19 in the second half, mainly because Garrison Brooks missed all seven free throws he attempted. One of his misses was the front end of a one-and-one fairly late in the game.

Brooks entered the contest having made 63.1 percent of his free throws on the year, but after going 0-for-7, it dropped to 59.1 percent.

“Garrison’s played great and you go 0-for-7 from the free throw line,” Williams rhetorically asked. “I mean, it’s things that don’t usually happen.”

One of our 3 Keys before the game was for the Tar Heels to completely dominate the backboards because it’s a winning formula and the statistics for both teams suggested they had an enormous advantage. But they didn’t.

BC entered the game ranked No. 335 in the nation in rebound margin at minus-5.4 while the Tar Heels entered No. 5 at plus-9.5 per contest. Yet, Carolina only had a 42-35 edge on the glass.

A consistent lack of boxing out was one of the reasons this didn’t go as it should have, and even with UNC having a 16-7 edge on the offensive glass, it owned only a 9-8 advantage in second-chance points. Note: UNC missed 39 shots while BC missed 30, so Carolina had more opportunities for offensive boards and second-chance points.

On a night where one can point to a dozen reasons why the Heels failed to notch a needed win, this part of the game ranks higher than some others.