Toughness fuels UNC men's basketball's ACC quarterfinal win over Wake Forest

CHARLOTTE — Emotions began to boil over with eight minutes left in Thursday's quarterfinal game. 

North Carolina squandered a double-figure lead in the second half. Physical plays and fouls accumulated. Frustration mounted. 

Sophomore guard Elliot Cadeau threw his arms in the air after getting whistled for a double foul — his fourth of the afternoon. The head coaches for both teams stormed toward the scores table to protest. On North Carolina's next possession, Wake Forest's Juke Harris received a flagrant foul for tripping graduate forward Jae'Lyn Withers. Then, UNC assistant coach Brad Frederick was called for a technical foul after springing from his seat and running down the Tar Heel sideline to object a missed foul call. 

But even with North Carolina's bid to the NCAA tournament hanging in the balance and UNC barely grasping on to a 52-51 lead, the technical didn't make the team spiral. Instead, it refocused them. 

“We used that as a way to for motivation,” graduate guard RJ Davis said. “Alright, things [are] not going our way. [We] feel like people are against us and what-not, so let’s use this as a way to get on a run.” 

With the game tied inside the final four minutes, No. 5 seed North Carolina closed out the game on an 11-3 scoring run and knocked off No. 4 seed Wake Forest, 68-59, in the ACC tournament quarterfinal on Thursday afternoon. 

Earlier this season, North Carolina struggled to close out down-to-the-wire games. But not this time. 

“Being in that situation so many times, you can draw upon those experiences where it worked out and where it didn't,” head coach Hubert Davis said. “These guys now step toward it instead of standing still or maybe taking a step back.”

The Tar Heels looked for stops on defense to swing the momentum. They repeated the mantra “whatever it takes” before breaking every huddle. 

The Demon Deacons missed seven 3-pointers and turned the ball over twice to end the game in the final seven and a half minutes against UNC.

“We really honed in on the defensive end,” Withers said. “Whenever we hold teams to tough middies and tough floaters, that goes in our favor just with us being able to rebound and run.” 

The momentum carried over to the offensive end where North Carolina looked to four different scorers. Instead of relying solely on RJ Davis, a frontcourt duo of Withers and junior forward Ven-Allen Lubin shouldered the scoring.

With 4:35 to go, first-year guard Ian Jackson found Withers wide-open in the corner. The Charlotte native drilled a triple and put UNC up by one. 

Then, on a half-court set designed to use Davis as a screener, the 6-foot guard backpicked Wake Forest center Efton Reid III to free up Lubin. From the opposite wing, sophomore guard Elliot Cadeau threw a lob to the UNC big man who flushed home the pass with a two-handed slam. 

During the next possession, Lubin added to his highlight reel with a put-back dunk off a missed 3-pointer. He landed, flexed with his arms and put North Carolina ahead by six with 1:27 to play. 

“Ven is a junior,” Hubert Davis said. “J-Wit is a fifth-year senior. That type of experience, they've been in tight situations before and feel comfortable about stepping up and making plays in those situations.” 

It’s only been recently that North Carolina has been able to turn the tide and close out games down the stretch. 

In UNC’s first road trip at Kansas, North Carolina led by two inside the final two minutes. But the Tar Heels couldn't score late and it cost them. It happened again during the Maui invitational in November, where UNC led Michigan State in overtime but couldn’t close it out. And it occurred once more at the Jumpman Invitational in December against Florida. 

“Early on in the year, if we would have been in that position, we might have lost that game,” RJ Davis said. “Our level of improvement has been upstream, and we've been doing a good job of kind of just keying in on the big details and not letting one missed shot carry on to other possessions and let it build up.”

It’s this shift in mindset that has helped North Carolina redefine its season. Leaning on the banked experience of 10 one possession games, Davis believes his team is now built for moments like this. 

“There's a level of toughness here that has been developed over the last seven or eight months that we've been together,” Hubert Davis said. “We were in these type of situations earlier in the year and weren't able to get stronger. We were able to do it today.”

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