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NEW YORK – It's one thing to execute, but it takes a whole other type of trust to execute blindly when the coaches ask their players to fly by the seat of their pants, so to speak.

That was where North Carolina’s players found themselves with 1.2 seconds remaining in regulation trailing Ohio State 79-77 in the CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden.

After perfectly executing an inbound play from the baseline under the Ohio State bench, giving UNC a timeout with a chance at a quick pass and shot hoping to send the game into overtime. But instead of Carolina Coach Hubert Davis calling on his team to run something they’d gone over in practice time after time, he didn’t call anything.

Instead, Davis yielded to one of his assistants to draw up the Tar Heels’ play.

"It was actually Coach (Jeff) Lebo," Bacot said. "Lebo usually handles the defense; he usually never draws up plays."

Not only was it unusual, but Bacot admitted that he wasn’t sure if it was the right play for the moment.

"I didn't see the vision," he said. "But we all had the trust and do out specific role and that is really what just brought the whole vision into for us"

The play was drawn perfectly to aid UNC’s newest starter’s strengths, and it worked. Pete Nance hit a 14-foot turnaround jumper sending the game into overtime before the Tar Heels earned an 89-84 victory.

Lebo knows his players, and that is what inspired his timely bit of coaching.

"One of the things Pete loves to do is he loves that side of the block, and he loves that turnaround jumper," Davis said.

Even though the play looked like a game-tying shot on paper, the Heels still had to execute the plan, just like the previous play Davis drew up to get RJ Davis across half court.

UNC (8-4) actually started the possession with 2.0 seconds remaining after the No. 23 Buckeyes (7-3) took the lead on a Brice Sensabaugh jumper with less than three seconds left. But UNC’s second-year coach had a plan. RJ Davis came off a curl toward mid-court when Leaky Black hit him with a pass just onto UNC’s side of the court and almost in front of his coach. Timeout.

"At the end of the day, it's about executing," RJ Davis said. "You can write up all the plays that you want. It's a make-or-miss game. Pete stepped up and made them and gave us an opportunity to go into overtime."

The last two plays of regulation offered a healthy glimpse into the national championship runners-up finding that form for one of the few times this season. It was a money moment and the Heels displayed their experience and resilience to keep fighting through adversity.

"The first thing is I thought their execution was fantastic to get the ball across half-court to get us into a position where we can run that play,” Hubert Davis said. “And then Coach Lebo thought that we could get the ball to Pete because of his lift, just throw it up. They weren't going to foul him."

This isn’t the title run team from last year, but UNC showed on Saturday the same flashes of a great team after being down by 14 and storming back through execution and trust.