UNC Scores Season High in Win Over UNCA

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – UNC women’s basketball took the last week off to focus on exams but returned to the court with a vengeance Sunday afternoon, setting season highs for points, assists, field goal percentage, and three-pointers in the Tar Heels’  107-46 win over UNC Asheville at Carmichael Arena.

The scoring total is the most for UNC (9-0) since piling up 124 points in a neutral-site win over New Orleans during the 2013-14 season and the most at Carmichael since scoring 109 in a homecourt win over Gardner-Webb at the start of the 2011-12 season. It’s the first time Carolina, ranked 24th in this week’s coaches’ poll, has reached triple digits since a 100-69 win at Elon to open the 2018-19 season.

It marked a team scoring high and also the first 9-0 record for the Tar Heels under third-year head coach Courtney Banghart, who applauded her team’s focus coming out of an atypical week.

“In a season of our length, you’re going to play through holidays, you’re going to play through vacations, you’re going to play through exams,” Banghart said. “You just can’t worry about what else is happening. When you’re inside the lines it’s about the standard that we want to set so we can build the right habits, and they did that for sure.”

All five Carolina starters scored at least 13 points, led by sophomores Deja Kelly and Alyssa Ustby with 19 each. Graduate student Carlie Littlefield scored 17, her high as a Tar Heel, and equaled her career-best with four three-pointers on just five attempts. Anya Poole had 16 points and nine rebounds, and Kennedy Todd-Williams had 13 points, including 3-for-4 three-point shooting.

“We were all excited to finally play with this long week behind us,” Kelly said.

All 11 healthy Tar Heels saw action, each playing less than 30 minutes. Ustby saw a team-high 29:45 of action, leading Carolina with 14 rebounds to register her fifth double-double in the season’s nine games. As a team, the Tar Heels grabbed 50 rebounds, hitting that mark for the second game in a row, as UNCA totaled 18, a low by a Carolina opponent this season.

Two Bulldogs reached double figures in points, with Nadiria Evans scoring 12 and Kai Carter totaling 11.

The Tar Heels led wire to wire for the fourth time in as many home games and still have not trailed at Carmichael this season for even a second. They scored the first 10 points of the game, capped by a second-chance bucket from Poole at the 6:30 mark. On the day, Carolina led 24-4 in second-chance points.

UNC took a 21-1 run into halftime to lead 53-17 at the break. The 53 points marked the largest output for the Tar Heels in a half this season.

The margin was never any smaller in the second half and UNC eventually led by as many as 66 (96-30) after the second of back-to-back fourth-quarter lay-ups by senior Jaelynn Murray. That marked the team’s biggest lead at any point in a game this season and the final margin of 61 points was the team’s largest margin of victory in 2021-22.

Carolina’s 11 three-pointers, led by Littlefield’s four, bested the then-season-high 10 the Tar Heels hit against James Madison in their most recent action, a week ago on Dec. 5. The team’s 24 assists – led by four each from Littlefield, Todd-Williams, and Ustby – is the season-high by one, beating out the 23 that UNC has had twice this season.

“Coach Banghart has been reiterating that throughout the week, just ‘share the ball, share the ball,’” Ustby said. “We have our best offense when we share the ball and we proved that to ourselves today.”

To go with the season-high in assists, the Tar Heels had a season-low in turnovers with eight.

“Any time you get 24 assists to only eight turnovers, a coach is going to be happy,” Banghart said, happily.

With a 9-0 record for the 12th time in program history, the Tar Heels return to the Carmichael court on Wednesday to host Jacksonville for a 6 p.m. game.