CHAPEL HILL – Blood on the floor. Players limping around. Roy Williams and Paul Hewitt out of their jackets and screaming.

It was just another typical night in the ACC.

In a league that looks tougher every day, 12th-ranked North Carolina proved resilient in dumping No. 8 Georgia Tech 103-88 on Sunday at the Smith Center.

When the 21,750 Carolina fans on hand fired up a chant of “overrated” in the final minutes, UNC head coach Roy Williams was quick to put a stop to it.

The Yellow Jackets (12-2, 0-1 in the ACC) weren’t ranked too high. This battle was just an example of what the ACC’s top teams are in for this season.

“It’s going to be like that every night,” UNC point guard Raymond Felton said. “You can’t sleep on any team in the ACC. You have to play ’til the buzzer.”

The Tar Heels (10-2, 1-1 in the ACC) got a career-high 28 points from Sean May and a great game from Felton to combat Georgia Tech’s array of offensive weapons.

May spent much of the second-half limping around the court thanks to calf cramps yet still put in 16 of his points after the break.

Felton crumpled to the floor two seconds into the second half with a leg cramp, but that didn’t stop him from scoring 25 points. Or from notching nine assists against just two turnovers.

The only Carolina player to hit the deck and not return was Jawad Williams who got smashed in the nose at the start of the second half and stayed down for several minutes before heading to the locker room.

“I think it says a lot about our team (to win) when one of our best players goes down,” May said. “For the team to come together shows a lot of maturity.”

The Tar Heels relied on their defense – a source of disappointment for Roy Williams at times this season – to spark a quick start against Tech.

Carolina jumped out to a 9-0 lead to start the game and forced 16 first-half turnovers to gain a 53-39 advantage at the break.

All those Tech miscues helped the Tar Heels shoot 49.3 percent from the field against a team that came into the game holding opponents to an ACC-best 35.6 percent.

Thanks to 17 points from Rashad McCants and 12 from Jackie Manuel off the bench to aid Felton and May, Carolina scored 100 points in back-to-back ACC games for the first time since 1993.

“We want to pressure the ball and make the other team make silly mistakes and turn the ball over,” Felton said. “We’ve got to play great defense to get our offense going.”

The Tar Heels led by as many as 21 points early in the second half, but the Yellow Jackets didn’t go away.

Tech cut its deficit to nine on a steal-and-dunk from reserve guard Will Bynum with 12:46 to go.

Yellow Jackets point guard Jarrett Jack had 16 of his team-high 22 points in the second half to help keep Tech in the game.

But Jack ended up one of three Yellow Jackets to foul out of a whistle-heavy game that featured 52 foul calls combined.

Carolina managed to keep everybody but Manuel in the game and fought off all of Tech’s efforts to cut back into the lead.

“It’s always about toughness,” McCants said. “We knew they were going to make a run, and they did. We just had to keep our composure.”

NOTES:

-Jawad Williams suffered a bloody nose and was described as “woozy” after the game. He was scheduled to be evaluated Monday.

-The last time Carolina had two players with 25 or more points was against Tech in 1998 when Shammond Williams had 42 and Antawn Jamison had 31 in a two-overtime contest.