Tar Heels pass test on road
North Carolina passed the kind of road challenge it wanted to face before starting Atlantic Coast Conference competition.
Kenny Williams made a go-ahead three-pointer with 35 seconds left as the seventh-ranked Tar Heels rallied past No. 20 Tennessee 78-73 Sunday.
This was the first game North Carolina (10-1) played all season that was decided by a single-digit margin. Even its lone loss of the season was a 63-45 blowout against No. 2 Michigan State.
“This will be good for us,” Williams said. “Every game in the ACC is like that. To have this experience and know we can pull it out, I think it will come in handy down the road.”
North Carolina capitalized on a 9-0 run in the final minute to win for the fifth straight time and ended Thompson-Boling Arena’s hex on defending national champions.
Tennessee (7-2) had won each of the last five times it had hosted a defending national champion, a string that included victories over Connecticut (in January 2012), Florida (February 2007 and February 2008) and Kentucky (February 1999 and February 2013).
“We always say we need a game like this to help us later on down the road,” said North Carolina’s Joel Berry II, who scored 21 points. “We hadn’t had a game like this. For us to be able to thrive in this situation and be able to get the momentum back on our side was a great thing. It was all about the defensive end. We got stops.”
Luke Maye and Williams added 15 points each for North Carolina. Grant Williams scored 15 points to lead five Tennessee players in double figures.
Tennessee led by as many as nine points in the second half and was ahead 70-67 before North Carolina took control down the stretch.
at No. 5 Arizona State 76, Vanderbilt 64: Tra Holder scored 25 points, Shannon Evans II added 15 and the Sun Devils overcame a dismal start to beat the Commodores.
Arizona State was coming off a victory last week over then-No. 2 Kansas that sent the Sun Devils to their highest ranking in 36 years.
The Sun Devils (10-0) looked nothing like the team that won at Allen Fieldhouse in the opening minutes against Vanderbilt (3-7), falling into a 13-0 hole as they tossed balls out of bounds and directly to the Commodores. Once they got rolling, there was no stopping the Sun Devils.
at No. 21 Baylor 118, Savannah State 86: Jo-Lual Acuil had career highs with 31 points and 20 rebounds and the Bears had a 21-0 first-half run to rout the Tigers. Manu Lecomte added 25 points for Baylor (9-2), King McClure had 19, Nuni Omot 18, and Mark Vital 12. Dexter McClanahan led Savannah State (3-7) with 22 points.