The North Carolina men’s basketball team (3-0) won a sloppy Friday evening game against Gardner-Webb, 77-61. First-year guard Cole Anthony led the way with 28 points for UNC.
What happened?
A summary of the game: messy.
The game got off to a slow start for both teams. After eight minutes, the score was only 9-9, and the two teams combined to shoot 6-20 with seven turnovers. After that, the gap between the two didn't exceed more than four points in the first half.
North Carolina went into halftime shooting 12-29, with Anthony making the team’s only 3-pointer on 10 attempts. While Anthony led the team in points before the break, first-year forward Armando Bacot had seven rebounds and was 4-6 from the floor.
As for Gardner-Webb, its stats weren’t much better at halftime. The Bulldogs shot 10-27 and made three out of their 11 attempted 3-pointers.
The Tar Heels came out firing on all cylinders in the beginning of the second half. Graduate transfer guard Christian Keeling scored five out of UNC’s first seven points in the period. Thanks to him and sophomore guard Leaky Black, UNC had its biggest lead of the night so far: 10.
With less than nine minutes to go, UNC led 53-47 before Anthony sank a 3-pointer. It was his first bucket since the 15:37 mark. The first-year continued to dominate with a step-back 3-pointer from near half-court four minutes later.
Anthony solidified the eventual Tar Heel victory with a statement dunk with just three minutes left, sending the arena into loud cheers and moving UNC to 3-0.
