CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Go big or go home.
It’s an aphorism repeated by UNC-Chapel Hill students on Franklin Street numerous times each weekend. And though the slogan has justified more than a few ill-advised decisions over the years, it was good advice for the UNC men’s basketball team during halftime of its 62-56 win at Virginia on Saturday afternoon.
“Just getting the ball inside, that’ll open it up for everybody because they were double-teaming,” UNC forward John Henson said. “Just getting some easy buckets, and just kind of build around that. And that’s what happened.”
At the time, the Tar Heels trailed the Cavaliers 37-30 and had not made a basket for the past three minutes and 56 seconds.
Of equal concern, Henson and Tyler Zeller, the team’s starting forwards and two of its three leading scorers, had taken just two shot attempts during the final nine minutes of the half. The Cavs outscored UNC 19-6 during that stretch.
Those nine minutes were a sharp departure from the beginning of the game, when Henson, Zeller and back-up power forward Justin Knox attempted shots on eight of UNC’s first 15 possessions to help the Tar Heels build a 22-13 advantage.
UNC lost its poise when the Cavaliers started coming back, and a spate of turnovers caused the Tar Heels to start settling for quick, outside jumpers instead of pushing the ball to its big men in the paint.
“The first eight or ten minutes, we were executing and then all of the sudden we just started turning the ball over and we just got ugly,” UNC coach Roy Williams said.
The Tar Heels opened the second half with a new mindset, but had little to show for it in the beginning. Zeller received a pass on the low block on UNC’s first trip down the floor after intermission, but promptly threw the ball out of bounds.
