Sad news for : He we not return

Unranked Clemson stuns No. 3 UNC men’s basketball at home, 80-76, in their second-ever road win over Tar Heels.

The No. 3 North Carolina men’s basketball team (18-5, 10-2) suffered its first home loss of the season, falling 80-76 to the Clemson Tigers (15-7, 5-6 ACC) on Tuesday night in the Dean E. Smith Center.

Graduate center Armando Bacot led the Tar Heels’ offense with 24 points (two shy of a season high) and 13 rebounds. Senior guard RJ Davis and junior wing Harrison Ingram also scored in double figures, with 22 and 11 points, respectively.

The opening few minutes were all Tiger pace. Despite defeating rival No. 9 Duke a few days earlier, UNC started slowly, scoring only two points in the first four minutes. The Tigers stepped on the accelerator right away, with shooters PJ Hall and Joseph Girard III both converting shots.

“I told them in the huddle during the first timeout at the beginning of the game that it’s just not about X’s and O’s,” head coach Hubert Davis remarked. “There’s nothing from a basketball standpoint we can talk about until the energy and the effort and enthusiasm rises, and if that would rise and things would change and then we can start talking about basketball.”
Clemson maintained a lead while the Tar Heels struggled defensively, in stark contrast to prior games in which they allowed opponents to score just under 70 points per game. Meanwhile, Girard and Hall shot threes and fadeaways into the basket. UNC was shooting 1-9 from outside the arc with just over eight minutes remaining in the first half. Paxson Wojcik, a graduate guard, scored the game’s first three points.

The Clemson defense, like the Blue Devils’, focused early on Tar Heel top scorer RJ Davis, preventing him from scoring until 13 minutes into the game. The senior guard, who averages 21.3 points per game, was held in check until late in the first stanza, when he scored the Tar Heels’ second three-pointer.

“I feel like it’s weird that we weren’t able to master energy today,” Ingram went on to say.

With four minutes left, Clemson maintained a 14-point advantage, with its 2-3 zone defense perplexing UNC and contributing to their offensive troubles. In the final minute before the half, RJ Davis and junior Harrison Ingram hit 3-pointers to give the Tar Heels a glimmer of hope on offense.

The Tar Heels trailed 43-34 at the half. The nine-point deficit is the most UNC has allowed at home this season, and Clemson’s halftime lead is only the second time in the previous 25 years that the Tigers have entered the Smith Center locker room with the advantage.

“We dug ourselves a hole in the first half,” RJ Davis said. “We attempted to pull ourselves out of it in the second half, but it was too late. And I believe that we can learn a lot from this game as we move forward.”

When the Tar Heels returned to the court, they were able to cut the deficit to one possession, the smallest of the game, thanks to a 10-3 UNC scoring spree that included Ingram from deep, an RJ Davis step-back three, and a Ryan jumper off an Ingram steal.

For the majority of the second period, UNC trailed Clemson, who picked up foul after foul, giving the Tar Heels a chance to close the gap. UNC’s offensive volume increased with little under four minutes remaining in the game, when Ingram, who had departed earlier in the period with a lower-body injury, returned to the court and hit a three to tie the game at 70. It was the closest the Tar Heels had been to taking the lead since 2-2.
Girard kept the Tigers ahead of the Tar Heels with a critical late three, giving Clemson a five-point advantage. The Tar Heels added insult to injury by committing four fouls in the final four minutes of the game, which Clemson took advantage of.

“At the end of the day, we didn’t get the win and – I just – I’m sad,” he added. “I don’t enjoy losing; I’m upset. I despise losing, especially on our home floor.”