UNC 85, Davidson 75: Tar Heels’ second half run puts away Wildcats

For the first 30 or so minutes, this game was pretty close. UNC took the lead for good with just under seven minutes left in the first half, but Davidson stuck around for a while longer. However, it always felt like there was a UNC run coming, and it eventually did.

The Tar Heels led by seven at the 10-minute mark in the second half, but just four minutes later, they were up 18 and the game was pretty much over. Davidson was able to knock down threes, and use that ability to open up some looks inside, but in the end, UNC was too much for them, and the Tar Heels ended up winning 85-75.

The two main outlets for Carolina in this game were Joel Berry and Luke Maye. Berry finished with 27 points on 8-15 shooting, knocking down four of UNC’s five threes. The other came from Maye, who went for 24 points himself. Maye also finished with 17 rebounds, and was the main contributor to the Tar Heels’ 54-23 winning margin on the boards.

UNC did the vast majority of their damage from two. They shot just 25% from three, but went 27-48 from two. The fact that they got 19 offensive rebounds was pretty helpful.

Other solid UNC performances came from the likes of Kenny Williams and Brandon Robinson. Williams went for 12 points, also chipping in with six rebounds. Meanwhile, Robinson had one his best games as a Tar Heel. He scored eight points, which was a career high for him. All eight came in the first half, as he provided good minutes while it was a still a pretty close game.

As mentioned earlier, the Wildcats did most of their damage from the three-point line, making 14 and shooting 42.4% from there for the game. That percentage is better than what they did from two, as Davidson had a total field goal percentage of 40.6%.

The bulk of the Wildcats’ offense came from Peyton Aldridge, Jon Axel Gudmundsson, and Kellan Grady, who went for 22, 19, and 18 points respectively, and all hit at least three three-pointers. UNC’s perimeter defense is definitely the main negative to come out of this game. The Tar Heels were just too good and were able to outlast Davidson, but allowing that many threes against a better team is definitely a dangerous road to go down.

Davidson is a pretty solid program, and will probably be a solid team this season. Due to that, it’s hard to get a good read on UNC’s performance. The game was a little too close for a bit too long, but then it also showed how good they could be when things are clicking.