Tar Heels push past Fresno State in women's tournament

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — As expected, Fresno State’s women’s basketball team opened its first-round NCAA tournament game against North Carolina with a 3-point swish.

Fresno State’s perimeter-frenzied offense, which leads the nation in 3-pointers per game, fired 50 shots from beyond-the-arc to keep the Bulldogs (25-8) competitive against the No. 5 seed Tar Heels.

But UNC had prepared for the pressure and used height to its advantage as Tar Heels picked up an 82-68 victory at The Pit.

“Fresno State is probably the best 12-seed team in the tournament,” UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell said. “They took 50 threes — that’s 10 more than anyone has ever taken on us. We had to make a lot of adjustments to cover that. The big kids had to come out.”

North Carolina (27-8) sent its bigs out of the paint to cover the perimeter. The Tar Heels found success pushing Fresno State’s shots farther off the 3-point line, a tactic that Hatchell believes adds to the versatility of her players.

“In all our defensive drills, we make our big girls come out and guard perimeter players,” Hatchell said. “They may not have to be quite as close because they’re big and can go and not be beat off the dribble but also contest those shots. They knew they were going to have to do that.”

And the greatest of that pressure was concentrated on the Bulldogs’ Jaleesa Ross.

Ross scored 14 points and sank four treys in her effort against the Tar Heels but fell just three 3-pointers short of the NCAA all-time 3-point record — widely thanks to the defensive effort of UNC’s Tierra Ruffin-Pratt.

“We tried to guard her and stay on her, cause we knew she was going to put up a lot of shots,” Ruffin-Pratt said. “They always put me on the best player no matter what team it is, so it wasn’t really a challenge. We just tried to not let her get her seven threes.”

Ruffin-Pratt was also responsible for the spark that ignited UNC’s offense early in the first half after the Bulldogs jumped to a lead with a 7-0 immediate run. The sophomore guard finished the game with 10 points and nine rebounds off the bench.

“We do balance each other out well,” senior point guard Cetera DeGraffenreid said. “Tierra came in off the bench and gave us a spark. We were down 14-5, and she helped us come back. When other people’s shots aren’t on, and even when they are on, we know who to get the ball to.”

That awareness of the Tar Heels’ offensive rhythm led five North Carolina players to hit double-digit points, as UNC shot 46.6 percent from the field.

Lucas led that effort, scoring 22 points and sinking four 3-pointers of her own to balance Fresno State’s success sinking 14 long-range shots.

“Her teammates got her the ball, and she made some good decisions on her shooting, with variety and going inside or out,” Hatchell said. “She made some big shots when we needed her to.”

The Tar Heels also saw a leap in their scoring in the second half, when senior Jessica Breland found strength to adjust to the altitude change from playing in New Mexico. While the forward spent much of the first half doubled over attempting to regain her breath — a lasting effect of her battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma — Breland rallied to score 10 points and tallied nine boards by game’s end.

With Breland’s second half push, UNC widened its lead that had at one time been as small as four points with 13 minutes left in the game.

North Carolina held on to its defensive strength to the game’s end, outrebounding the Bulldogs 50-38 and continuing to deny Fresno State looks at game-changing threes.

“We switched a lot of our screens so they couldn’t get any open looks,” Lucas said. “Most of their points were coming from behind the 3-point line, so we tried to eliminate that in the second half.”

UNC advances to the second round of the tournament in Albuquerque on Monday, when the Tar Heels will play the winner of the matchup between Kentucky and Hampton.