Tar Heels humble Hokies

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Virginia Tech set up a scene all too familiar for the North Carolina basketball team Thursday night in Cassell Coliseum.

Stunned by the Hokies’ immediate accuracy from beyond the arc, the Tar Heels were slow to take action when faced with the familiarity of falling behind early to an ACC opponent.

But the scarring reminders of the Tar Heels’ 33-point loss to Florida State proved to be short-lived, as No. 8 UNC (16-3, 3-1 ACC) climbed its way back to an 82-68 victory against the Hokies (11-7, 0-4).

“The good thing is, it’s two different halves,” coach Roy Williams said. “They made a bunch of shots, and you don’t expect that to happen, but it does. That’s the game of basketball.

“(In the) second half I told them I wanted to guard them better — make it more contested 3’s.”

As the Tar Heels’ slow perimeter defense handed Virginia Tech 24 first-half points on eight 3-pointers, North Carolina initially couldn’t find a way to stop the Hokies’ hot hands.

But by the end of the first half, sophomore point guard Kendall Marshall had seen enough.

Marshall connected with junior John Henson for an alley-oop just as the game clock ran out to keep UNC within five points.

“That was kind of the first good thing that went for us,” Henson said. “We got the momentum going with that dunk and tried to come out in the second half and keep pushing forward.”

From there, North Carolina’s offense crept back to a comfortable lead in the second half — though not without its challenges.

With just less than 17 minutes left in the game, junior Dexter Strickland added his name to North Carolina’s injury list when he went down with pain in his right knee and had to be helped off the Cassell Coliseum court.

Williams said in the postgame press conference that Strickland’s injury will be evaluated when the team returns to Chapel Hill on Friday.

Even with Strickland’s removal, the Tar Heels continued to reassert their control from the field in the second half, and North Carolina went on a 19-0 run that silenced the suddenly anemic Hokies for more than five minutes in the middle of the second half.

But a majority of that run came from a swift change in the Tar Heels’ defensive effort.

“For us, I thought it was totally, totally, totally our defense in the second half was just so much more active,” Williams said.

“John set the stage with his blocks, but everybody. We were there on the catch. We didn’t give them the open ones. We didn’t give them the open 3’s.

“And then on the offensive end, we started playing North Carolina basketball.”

Henson added a double-double to North Carolina’s effort with 16 points and 16 boards and six blocks, while senior forward Tyler Zeller notched 14 points and 11 rebounds of his own.

But the majority of North Carolina’s success Thursday night came from the hands of sophomore forward Harrison Barnes.

Barnes thrived with a second-half resurgence and led the Tar Heels with 27 points, 21 in the second half — just eight points fewer than the entire Virginia Tech squad scored in the half. He also added six rebounds.

“Harrison was Harrison,” Marshall said. “He made my job easy. I know there came about four or five possessions in a row when I just threw him the ball and went and stood in the other corner. He made big plays for our team tonight.”

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