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CHAPEL HILL – The streak wasn’t exactly historic, but it kind of felt like it given North Carolina’s amazing history and standard, and the nature Virginia had essentially strangled the Tar Heels over their previous seven meetings.
The last time the Tar Heels beat Virginia entering Saturday’s game was in the middle of February in 2017, which was about six weeks before they cut down the nets to win the 2017 NCAA championship. That puts into perspective that it really had been a long time since UNC beat UVA on the hardwood.
To be exact it was a span of 1,785 days.
But that ended Saturday at the Smith Center, as the Tar Heels pulled away from Virginia, 74-58, snapping a seven-game skid against the Cavaliers, and did so in highly offensive fashion.
The motivation was there, to end the streak, and added incentive was that UNC forward Justin McKoy spent his first two seasons playing for the Cavaliers, so his teammates had that in mind, too.
“We all wanted that game for just us and Justin, too, him transferring from UVA, and just me never beating UVA, and it's been like seven games in a row they beat us,” junior forward Armando Bacot said. “We really wanted to win this game. (Assistant) Coach (Jeff) Lebo did a good job on the scout. It was a lot of different looks that we threw at them.
“We just did a good job executing it and when we play with energy, I mean we could be a great team. It doesn't really matter who we play we just got to play with energy.”
In the seven-game stretch, Carolina was abysmal offensively in each performance. The average score of those game was Virginia 62, UNC 53.3, UNC shot 37.3 percent from the floor, including 26.9 percent from three-point range, and in four of the games, the Tar Heels attempted more shots from the field than they scored points in those contests.
On Saturday, the Heels raced past the 63-point mark today with 5:59 left to play on a three-pointer by Brady Manek as the shot clock was about to expire. It gave Carolina a 65-47 lead.
UNC Coach Hubert Davis didn’t mince words during a press conference Friday saying he reminded the team several times about the streak and how unacceptable it was. He got his wish and then some.
Whether it was Virginia or anyone else in the Smith Center on Saturday, Davis was pleased with how his team played, though taking apart Virginia’s pack line defense was particularly gratifying.
“Virginia is an unbelievable basketball team,” Davis said. “And anytime that you get a chance to compete against them and you end up winning it's been a good day, and it's a good day good day for North Carolina basketball.”
So the streak is now a thing of the past, and the Heels are happy moving on.
