CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Cormac Ryan was soaking wet.
After the Tar Heels' 54-44 win over Virginia in John Paul Jones Arena, the No. 10 North Carolina men's basketball team was jumping around the visitor's locker room, music blasting out of the custom UNC-branded Bumpboxx sitting on Harrison Ingram's shoulder. Ryan walked in, and RJ Davis ran up to him, proceeding to dump the team's water cooler all over Ryan's head.
It wasn't for no reason. The graduate guard scored 18 points off of six 3-pointers to guide the Tar Heels to their first win in Charlottesville since February 25, 2012. Five of those baskets came in the opening 20 minutes — part UNC's season-low 26 first half points. The game was the first time that Ryan has led North Carolina in scoring, and marked his most 3-pointers a game as a Tar Heel.
And, considering the fact Saturday marked the fewest points UNC has scored in any victory since 2012 — in its 54-51 victory against Virginia, for that matter — there may have been no other game where Ryan's scoring was as desperately needed.
“A lot of it is just trusting my work, trusting the work that I put in," Ryan said. "I worked really hard to get to where I am now.”
He believed his shots were going to fall, and fall they did. That sort of split-second decision making is especially crucial against a team like Virginia, which is known for its defensive prowess.
When Ryan got the ball on the perimeter, he shot it. And over half of those times, it went in.
“That was huge for us, from the standpoint of him making them,” head coach Hubert Davis said.
Without those shots, especially in the first period, UNC would have been completely shut down offensively. However, the Tar Heels had been practicing breaking through the Cavalier's pack line defense all week.