Following a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of the Stanford Cardinal in the 2014 NCAA Tournament, the No. 11 North Carolina women’s basketball team channeled cold resentment into a fiery performance en route to a 70-54 win over No. 5 Stanford in the first game of the Rainbow Wahine Shootout Friday.
“They felt like they probably should have won that game last year,” said Coach Sylvia Hatchell, whose leukemia kept her away from UNC’s previous meeting with the Cardinal. “They talked about this game for a long time.”
The sting of last season’s defeat and not making it to the Final Four — where Hatchell had promised to coach them had they advanced — provided plenty of motivation for the rematch.
“We came in with the mindset of, ‘This is the rematch; this is the much anticipated game from last year; this is the team that ended our season,’” said senior Latifah Coleman, who led the team with a career-high 19 points. “We just used that as fuel to the fire.”
Coleman exemplified that fire, doing everything from crashing the boards to shutting down her matchup, even mopping up the slippery floor between timeouts.
And after mustering only 24 points in the first half, UNC rallied in the second half behind its leader.
“Coach Hatchell came in at halftime and was like, ‘Your man is playing way off of you, so you’re going to have to shoot the ball,’” said Coleman, who hit all three of her second-half 3-point attempts. “I just went out at halftime with (confidence) and kept shooting the ball, and things started falling.”
The confidence spread, as UNC got hot from beyond the arc, shooting a season high 41.4 percent.
