WHAT THE HEEL?!
UNC ROUTED BY A&M IN TOTAL STUNNER
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With less than six minutes left in their second-round NCAA Tournament game, North Carolina senior Theo Pinson thought he had a breakaway layup that might give his team some muchneeded momentum. But before he could convert, Tonny Trocha-Morelos of Texas A&M came flying through the air behind him.
Morelos made an empathic block off the glass, the ball bouncing into the hands of another Aggi e, who launched a deep pass down court, where Robert Williams was waiting to put on a show. The 6-foot-10 Williams knows what to do with a breakaway dunk, slamming it down in an aggressive windmill fashion. It was an emphatic flush that all but signaled an end to North Carolina’s defense of its 2017 national championship. There will be no Sweet 16 for the Tar Heels this season.
With a front line that looked NBA ready, the seventh-seeded Aggies used the inside muscle of Tyler Davis and the power of Williams to dominate the secondseeded Tar Heels 86-65 at the Spectrum Center. When the Aggies (22-12) weren’t causing blunt-force trauma, junior forward D.J. Hogg and freshman point guard T.J. Starks were burying the Heels from the perimeter. Starks scored 21 points, while Davis had 18 and Hogg 14. Williams had eight points and 13 rebounds.
“What they did to us inside early in the game shocked us even though we knew they were good,” UNC coach Roy Williams said. “It shocked us.”
Texas A&M advances to the Sweet 16 for the sixth time overall and the first time since 2016. The Aggies will meet third-seeded Michigan on Thursday night in a West Region semifinal in Los Angeles.
“We just stuck to the game plan, played to our strengths,” Davis said. “We know we have the advantage on the inside with most teams. We do what we do every day, go to war on the inside and eat glass.”
Texas A&M was expected to use its towering frontline to pound Carolina inside. But seven minutes into the game, the Tar Heels (26-11) had lured the Aggies into a jump-shooting contest. It started with the Tar Heels defense using its speed and spacing to pressure the Aggies offense, which made just four of its first 16 field goals. After Joel Berry II (21 points) made a short jumper, the Tar Heels were up 18-13 with a partisan Carolina crowd roaring its approval.
Then the Aggies woke up and returned to their strength. Davis, a 6-10 junior, scored eight consecutive points to give A&M a 23-20 advantage it never relinquished. In the midst of the run was a thunderous block by Williams, who treated the basketball like a grapefruit. A floater by the 6-9 Hogg made it 28-20.
The Tar Heels, meanwhile, grew cold. They failed to score a field goal for nearly eight minutes, managing just a pair of free throws by Berry during that stretch. The Aggies kept rolling.
“It was tough to stop them,” Berry said. “I think we just stopped being aggressive.”