UNC Men’s Basketball Fails To Earn Win In A Home Loss Against Miami

Chapel Hill, NC – The UNC Tar Heels men’s basketball team (16-10, 9-7 ACC) lost to No. 15 Miami (21-5, 12-4 ACC) 80-72 on Monday night, February 13th, at the Dean E. Smith Center, significantly hurting their hopes of getting a bid into the NCAA Tournament.

The Tar Heels (16-10, 8-7 ACC) experienced an NCAA Tournament-like turnaround after defeating Clemson by 20 points over the weekend. They missed 20 of their first 22 shots from 3-point range and shot just under 60% from the line. 

 UNC had a 31.4% long-range shooting percentage going into the game, which is the second-worst mark in program history. The Tar Heels made 5 of 31 long shots. 

 The first media timeout score was 9-9 as the two teams swapped punches to start the game. Miami built a 16-10 lead when the Tar Heels missed five straight attempts after the stoppage because they could not hit the bottom of the net.

 When junior forward Puff Johnson was finally successful in scoring, North Carolina began to reduce Miami’s advantage. With 6:45 remaining in half, the Tar Heels retook the lead, 22-21, thanks to a combined eight points from sophomore guards Caleb Love and RJ Davis and a nearly six-minute scoring drought by Miami. With just two field goals missed in the remaining seven minutes of the first half, North Carolina kept the pressure on to end the period with a 35-34 deficit.

 The Hurricanes, who led 35-34 at halftime but shot 52 percent after the break to take control and open a 14-point advantage, were paced by Miller who had 24 points and 11 rebounds. The Tar Heels scored 26 points in the paint before halftime thanks partly to Miami’s defense, which cut off those chances of scoring.

Coming out of the half, the Hurricanes played defense even more aggressively to keep UNC ball handlers from getting scoring opportunities. Carolina scored only 14 points in the paint in the 2nd half. 

RJ Davis led UNC, who trailed by as many as 14 points in the second half before cutting its deficit to four in the last minute, with 23 points, while Caleb Love contributed 20. Before leaving the floor for the locker room in the last second of the first 18 minutes due to a possible injury, Armando Bacot scored 10 points. Bacot began the second half but struggled with his foul count, picking up his fourth foul with 12 minutes remaining. It took him till 2:09 of the second half to score again. With 7.8 seconds remaining, he was fouled out.

The remainder of the week will be off for the Tar Heels until they face No. 23 NC State (20-6, 10-5 ACC) on Sunday, February 19th, at 1 PM. The Wolfpack’s 20-6 record through 25 games is their best mark since the 2005-06 squad’s 21-5 record. On January 21st, Carolina defeated NC State 80-69 in a home win.