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The road in the ACC is a very tough place to play, and the Tar Heels found that out early in conference play this season after dropping their first two contests away from Chapel Hill. Upon their return to the Smith Center, Carolina made it very tough on Boston College. UNC was able to return to form in a big way with a 30-point victory.
Luke Maye struggled to find consistency after the Wofford loss at home, but he bounced back in a huge way against the Eagles. The junior scored 32 points and pulled down 18 rebounds in his best performance of the year. Maye started the season as hot as anyone could be, and he looked every bit that hot against Boston College.
There was a starting lineup change not due to injury for the first time this season when Roy Williams decided to start the so-called Death Lineup from the get-go. He replaced Garrison Brooks with Cameron Johnson, and the grad transfer absolutely made the best of it. Cam scored 14 points and pulled down 11 rebounds in his first start of the season.
Carolina’s offense, as it has whenever that lineup has been on the floor, just seemed to flow better with that particular group of players. Of course, the makeup of Boston College’s team made that lineup easier to turn to with their lack of size. Still, it was nice to see the team get back into a rhythm offensively after struggling mightily against Virginia.
The rebound differential was massively in favor of the Heels with Carolina out-rebounding Boston College 58-23. The Heels were able to turn those rebounds into 24 second chance points to BC’s six. The Eagles did go on a run at the beginning of the second half when Carolina’s defense got a bit lax, but the Heels were able to lock it down from there.
UNC finished the game shooting 50% from the field and holding BC to 39%. The Eagles did make 12 three-pointers with Ky Bowman sinking four of his 12 shots beyond the arc.
The Heels will try to continue their success when they hit the road to take on a Bonzie Colson-less Notre Dame team in South Bend on Saturday.