'Just a turnover': UNC men's basketball falls to Kentucky after late-game miscue

ATLANTA — His eyebrows raised and eyes wide, Elliot Cadeau screamed: “What the fuck!”

With 11.9 seconds left and Kentucky ahead by three points, Hubert Davis said UNC was looking for a “quick score.” Instead, Cadeau turned the ball over, passing it off of Cormac Ryan’s back and then watching as RJ Davis sprinted from the corner in an attempt to save the play.

Cue the expletives.

Ryan and Cadeau exchanged (seemingly) calmer words at the other end of the court and the game was over about 10 seconds later as No. 14 Kentucky toppled No. 9 North Carolina 87-83 in the CBS Sports Classic at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on Saturday.

Hubert, RJ and Ryan offered few details on UNC’s 11-seconds-remaining mishap other than a “the play was not to turn the ball over” quip from the head coach. To Hubert Davis, it was "just a turnover." To be specific, it was one of 17 turnovers on the game — the most UNC has recorded since its quadruple-overtime loss to Alabama in 2022.

And if you weren’t watching in person, or at home — or maybe you’ve watched the replay over and over and are still confused — here you go: positioned at the corner of the hardwood, Davis planted his foot and turned to sprint around the perimeter. Ahead of him, Harrison Ingram was setting a screen.

“I think it was just the little details,” RJ Davis said. “We were right there in the end of the game. There were a couple of slippages.”’

Ryan jogged down the right side of the court. Maybe it was to complete a stagger screen for Davis to receive the ball. Or maybe the drawn-up play was a dribble handoff Ryan failed to comply with. 

“The long and short of it is stuff happens in the game,” Ryan said. 

Cadeau, just after passing midcourt, threw the ball to Ryan, who never even looked in his direction.

“Sometimes you come out of the huddle [and] things go differently,” Ryan said. “It is what it is. We pick each other up and we stay together.”

Despite the postgame scene — RJ Davis pausing for an extra second to let his hands fall to his knees before joining the handshake line, Armando Bacot hanging his head as he walked off the court — Ryan said there’s not an ounce of panic in UNC’s locker room.

Sure, North Carolina didn’t record a field goal for the final minute and 57 seconds, but it wasn’t due to a lack of confidence.

“We have a lot of faith that we’re going to execute in late-game situations,” Ryan said. “Sometimes you’ve gotta play a good team in a tough environment early in the season to find out that you’ve got work to do to finish out games.”

Hubert Davis said he didn’t say anything to the team after the game, taking a leaf from former UNC head coach Dean Smith’s book. There was too much emotion. But he hardly hid his disappointment, calling Kentucky the “tougher" team.

There was nothing Davis needed to add because, according to Ryan, the team already understood his trust in them.

“There’s nobody in the locker room that has more faith in us than Coach Davis to execute our plays,” Ryan said. “So we’re not going to get into the specifics of the play because we’re going to run it again and we’re going to execute and we’re going to win the ball game next time.”

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