First half hole dooms Tar Heels

North Carolina’s performance in close games this season has been remarkable.

The women’s basketball team has come from behind in the final minute, overcome halftime deficits and held off late-game runs.

The Tar Heels’ three losses, though, haven’t even been close.

As lopsided as it was, No. 5 Duke’s 84-63 dismantling of the No. 11 Tar Heels on Sunday afternoon in Carmichael Arena was actually UNC’s smallest margin of defeat all season.

In January, UNC fell to then-No. 10 Maryland by 26, and it fell in the fall to then-No. 16 Tennessee by 45.

The Blue Devils also played spoiler to what could have been coach Sylvia Hatchell’s 900th career win.

“We haven’t lost a close game,” Hatchell said. “But the three games we’ve lost, we’ve had a bad run somewhere along the way. Tonight, we had a bad stretch that really, really hurt us.”

That stretch included almost the entire first half. North Carolina headed to the locker room trailing 50-19.

UNC was reeling. Duke’s 3-point accuracy, swarming defense and effective ball movement frustrated the Tar Heels. It didn’t help that UNC had turned the ball over 14 times.

What had begun as a 5-2 Duke lead quickly blossomed into a 10, then 20, then 30-point gap.

Forwards Xylina McDaniel and Waltiea Rolle both picked up three first-half fouls, and as a team, the Tar Heels shot just 22 percent for the half.

UNC’s lack of composure mounted with the Blue Devils’ lead.

McDaniel, who was held scoreless in the game’s first half, was party to a double-technical as she and Duke’s Chelsea Gray fought for the ball well after the jump-ball whistle.

In contrast, Duke coach Joanne McCallie said her team handled the pressure well.

“I’ve liked where their heads have been, starting at Miami and leading up to today,” McCallie said of her players. “The team is actually quite young, but … players are talking more, becoming more vocal about what we need to do — especially when we play in environments that can get kind of crazy.”

In the second half, the Tar Heels began to hit shots and managed to make the crowd a little crazier.

While UNC closed the gap to 18 points, the 31-point deficit it faced at halftime proved insurmountable.

“Coach came in at halftime and gave us a motivational speech to wake us up, and we got back into our game in the second half,” Rolle said. “But we should have come out like that in the beginning.”

Hatchell described the type of mental toughness that has allowed her team to close out games as distinct from the pressure her players feel at the beginning of a big game. She said the key to improvement — and avoiding blowouts — will be developing mental fortitude that sets in before the game has even begun.

“We started out like we were intimidated — I hate to say that, but I’m just being honest,” Hatchell said. “At the beginning of the game, there’s a different kind of pressure after you’ve played probably 10 minutes or so. In the second half, it was like, ‘Hey, we’re down by 30, what have we got to lose? Let’s play!’”

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.