UNC survives early scare, beats LIU in NCAA tournament

CHARLOTTE — With 5:01 left in the first half of the North Carolina second round 102-87 win against Long Island University, the Tar Heels faced a test after absorbing a 9-0 Long Island University run.

Tied 33-33, the Washington and Georgia fan contigents began to swing their alliegences to the plucky Blackbirds, sensing that the No. 15 seed could potentially make each respective school’s trip to the Sweet 16 a little easier. All this managed to turn what was presumed to be a pro-UNC crowd against the Tar Heels.

“Defensively we didn’t do a very good job (during the LIU run),” freshman forward Harrison Barnes said.

The Tar Heels seemed caught off guard by the way the Blackbirds came to life offensively with their season slipping away.

“I think we got up by 10 or 15 and then let them back in,” UNC junior Tyler Zeller said. “I go back to being in the NCAA tournament, they are going to keep coming back hard.”

Even the Long Island players felt the murmur of the crowd.

“Making that run was a great feeling,” Long Island guard Julian Boyd said. “We have been down in games before so we knew a comeback was in us. Once we tied it up, we knew our crowd could keep us in the game.”

Instead of wilting like so many highly seeded but inexperienced teams do, North Carolina displayed a steely reserve in responding with a 13-2 run of their own to put the lead back out of reach.

“You have to give Long Island credit, they didn’t go away, they kept coming back,” UNC coach Roy Williams said. “They’re pretty doggone good.”

From that point on, the closest Long Island got was nine points behind the Tar Heels.

Going into the game, the Tar Heels has a marked height advantage, as 7-foot Tyler Zeller and 6-foot-10 John Henson were going against a part of 6-foot-7 forwards.

UNC’s trio of forwards combined to score 84 of UNC’s 102 points.

Both Zeller and Henson set career highs for points, scoring 32 and 28 points respectively.

“I think we just did a good job of taking advantage of what they were giving us,” Zeller said. “We had mismatches inside and we took advantage of what we could.”

Not to be outdone by the two big guys underneath, Barnes grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds to go with 24 points.

Point guard Kendall Marshall did not even need to shoot, only hoisting up two shots in 31 minutes, instead focusing on getting the ball to the big guys inside.

“That’s not my job, I think my job is to get our team great shots,” Marshall said. “Whether it is me shooting the ball, or more than likely feeding our bigs.”

He did his job well, dishing out 10 assists, the most in UNC tournament history since Ed Cota did it.

The Blackbirds’ 87 points is the most by a UNC opponent in a NCAA tournament game that ended in regulation since Texas Tech scored 92 in 1996.

“Before the game (Williams) told us that we couldn’t go out there and just outscore them, and I guess he used reverse psychology on that,” Barnes said. “In the next games we are going to have to step up our defense if we want to continue.”

While the Tar Heels hope to improve their defense in subsequent games, they can still recite the old March platitude – survive and advance.

“Well, it’s a W,” Williams said. “We are one of 32 teams that are advanced and we’re pleased about that.”

The Tar Heels will face Washington at 12:15 on Sunday afternoon.