There was no reprieve for No. 8 North Carolina after winning at No. 1 Duke on Wednesday – not with a team riding an eight-game winning streak coming to town.
No. 8 UNC backed up its big win against the Blue Devils with a 77-59 victory against No. 16 Florida State Saturday afternoon at the Smith Center. First-year guard Nassir Little and graduate guard Cam Johnson each scored 18 points in the win.
With the win, the Tar Heels have now won 10 of their last 11 games.
What happened?
The player of the first half for North Carolina (22-5, 12-2 ACC) was Little. Little scored a game-high 11 points in the first half — tied with Florida State’s David Nichols — and tacked on five boards. Among those 11 points, the highlights were a powerful dunk right on top of 6-foot-10 Mfiondu Kabengele and a contested putback lay-in where he was fouled.
While the Tar Heels continued their struggles from three, they employed the same successful strategy in the paint that helped them counteract the problem against Duke. UNC grabbed nine offensive boards compared to Florida State’s four, and accrued a 20-6 advantage in paint points in the first 20 minutes.
Johnson and senior Luke Maye joined Little with five rebounds at the half, helping secure an overall 25-20 rebounding advantage even with sophomore Garrison Brooks relegated to the bench for much of the half with two fouls. Both teams put together 11-point runs in the half, but UNC held onto a 37-34 lead at the break.
After halftime, Coby White scored six quick second-half points and UNC eventually turned a three-point halftime advantage into a comfortable margin. Up by just four, Maye hit two 3-pointers and Little added a jumper as UNC’s advantage quickly ballooned to double-digits.
Defensively, the Tar Heels limited FSU to just 25 percent shooting in the second half and the Seminoles made just three 2-point field goals after halftime.
