UNC men's basketball gets chippy in win over Michigan State

CHARLOTTE — The Spartans were talking. 

They were talking yesterday. They were talking before the game. They were talking during the game.

“I was lit,” UNC junior forward Harrison Ingram said. “I was ready for this game. This is the one I wanted. When teams talk, that’s what we do 'cause we talk back. It doesn’t really matter to us. We don’t care who you are, what you say, what you claim to be.”

But early in Saturday's second-round NCAA tournament game, Ingram and the Tar Heels got punched in the mouth. North Carolina trailed Michigan State 26-14 with 9:37 to go in the first half. 

From there, the Tar Heels went on a 26-5 run to take a 40-31 lead into halftime — a stretch that proved to be the turning point in UNC’s 85-69 victory at the Spectrum Center. Part of it was a 17-0 kill shot, UNC’s largest unanswered spurt in an NCAA tournament game since a 19-0 run against Marquette in 2011. The win also marks the Tar Heels’ largest comeback in an NCAA tournament game since they trailed Southern California by 16 in the 2007 Sweet 16.

“We came out a little bit soft,” graduate guard Cormac Ryan said. “Against a team like Michigan State, that’ll get you beat. It started to get us beat.”

Before North Carolina took control, Michigan State dominated the game inside with its physicality. Mady Sissoko and Malik Hall were catching the ball deep in the paint and scoring at will. Head coach Hubert Davis said his Tar Heels were overwhelmed.

The Spartans were backing up their talk. Ingram and his teammates took it personally.

In the under-eight timeout, UNC discussed its toughness.

“They were just playing better than us,” Davis said. “We came into the huddle and said, ‘Look, we can't talk about any basketball stuff until we join the fight.’ Once that started, the level of play in terms of the energy and effort, the attention to detail, rose. Then that's when things started to change.”

Things went differently for the Tar Heels in the rest of the first half. Ingram knocked down a couple of threes. Graduate center Armando Bacot started to take it to the Spartans inside, drawing fouls and getting to the line three times. On the other end, UNC started to amp up the intensity. Jae’Lyn Withers got a steal. Elliot Cadeau drew an offensive foul. Bacot swatted two shots.

“I like when people are doubting you,” Ryan said. “When you’re down 10 [or] 12, and [it's] looking like things aren’t going well, that’s a tough position to be in but also a great position to be in to get really hungry. And that’s something that, me personally, I like. I think you’d ask these guys, [and] they like it too. We’ve always responded to those challenges, and that’s just the kind of team we are.”

The highlight of UNC's run came with 3:19 left in the half. The Tar Heels played a great defensive possession and forced MSU's Tyson Walker to take a deep three as the shot clock expired. Graduate guard Paxson Wojcik grabbed the rebound and sprinted into the open floor. He drove to the basket, drawing Spartan defenders, and then kicked it to RJ Davis, who was wide open in the corner. 

Wojcik knew it was in. He was running back on defense with his hand in the air as the ball was afloat. 

Splash. Dagger. Timeout Spartans.

At that point, the Tar Heels were enjoying the talk.

To be clear, they do not bring the talk. Hubert Davis doesn't like that. But they will respond to it.

“[Davis] does love it whenever the other team brings it,” Ingram said. “He’s OK with us talking. He’s OK with us being ourselves. [Michigan State] brought it from the beginning. We knew it was going to be that type of game.”

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