Blazers smoke North Carolina

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Roy Williams had 13 years to observe his Sunday counterpart — to understand his tendencies, his personality, his unbridled competitiveness. For 13 years, Williams kept Jerod Haase close by his side, first as an administrative assistant at Kansas and then for nine years at North Carolina.

Going into Sunday’s matchup against University of Alabama-Birmingham — a program in its second year under Haase — Williams knew the Blazers would reflect Haase’s fiery tenacity and aggressiveness. Knowing UAB ranked fourth in the country in total rebounds, Williams warned his Tar Heels that they would battle ferociously on the boards.

Yet, despite that warning, it was Williams who offered Haase a congratulatory handshake at game’s end with UAB fans waiting impatiently to burst onto the Bartow Arena court. Haase’s Blazers controlled possession, out-rebounded UNC 52-37 and out-hustled Williams’ No. 16 Tar Heels for a 63-59 upset .

“Jerod Haase is one of the nicest young men I’ve ever known in my life and one of the best competitors I’ve ever known in my life, and he got his team to compete a heck of a lot harder today than my team,” Williams said. “I just felt that they seemed to get every loose ball, so many second-shot opportunities.”

That control of the ball allowed the Blazers to win despite the fact they shot just 30.6 percent for the game and just 21.9 in the second half. They never lost the lead after establishing a 5-4 margin 2 minutes and 22 seconds into the game, stifling UNC’s fast-break efforts with 21 offensive rebounds.

The Tar Heels scored just two fast-break points in the entire 40 minutes.

“They just went after the ball harder than we did,” guard Marcus Paige said. “We talked about it before the game, talked about it all week, talked about it at halftime, and then the first five or six possessions, they got second-chance opportunities.

“Honestly, they kind of manhandled us on the boards, and that was the difference in the game.”

Meanwhile, Haase clearly did some studying of his own, as the UAB defense targeted Paige and junior James Michael McAdoo, neutralizing UNC’s main offensive weapons.

McAdoo didn’t tally his first field goal until the 7:45 mark in the first half, finishing 3-for-13 from the field.

And Paige, who had made 17 of UNC’s 19 3-pointers before Sunday, was 0-for-6 at the 3-point line. UAB junior guard Chad Frazier held the UNC sophomore in check for most of the contest while scoring a game-high 25 points of his own.

Paige did tally 11 of his 13 points in UNC’s second-half comeback effort, but his last-ditch, game-tying 3-point attempt with eight seconds left never escaped the corner. Again, Haase’s Blazers had an answer, as Robert Williams went up for the block.

It was the second time Haase had faced his former head coach — the first coming exactly a year ago in a 102-84 UNC win in Chapel Hill — and this time, the pupil outmaneuvered the teacher.

“It’s hard at the end of the game for him. It’s hard for me,” Williams said. “I told him at the beginning of the game I love my team more than I do him. And yet at the end of the game, you have to feel some pride in what he’s doing.

“You have to feel some sadness in what we’re doing and what we did today.”

sports@dailytarheel.com