University of North Carolina Athletics
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Wake Forest
No. 1 North Carolina Holds Off No. 19 Wake Forest, 80-74
February 6, 2001 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 6, 2001
Carolina NewsStand
By DAVID DROSCHAK
AP Sports Writer
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - It has been hard to beat North Carolina's execution down the stretch the last two months.
Joseph Forte scored 24 points as the top-ranked Tar Heels shot 54 percent en route to an 80-74 victory over No. 19 Wake Forest on Tuesday night.
"I think we understand how to win," said Forte, who also had six rebounds and five steals. "The last three minutes we could be playing equal to the other team, but if the game is close our guys are going to pull it out."
Wake Forest coach Dave Odom believed his team played good enough and hard enough to knock off the Tar Heels. But then Forte and his veteran teammates played nearly flawless ball over the final four minutes.
"I was impressed with North Carolina's ability to get the ball where they wanted it on offense when they wanted it," Odom said as he watched the Tar Heels start 6-0 on the road in the Atlantic Coast Conference for the first time since 1987.
The win extended North Carolina's NCAA record of consecutive 20-win seasons to 31 as the Tar Heels (20-2, 10-0) also notched their 17th straight victory despite 20 turnovers.
Wake Forest (15-7, 4-6) led for much of the second half, but fell apart on both ends of the floor late. After starting the season 12-0, the Demon Deacons have dropped seven of their last 10.
Forte hit an off-balance jumper with the shot clock on 1 second and the Tar Heels clinging to a 72-69 lead with 1:12 left, and made two free throws a half-minute later.
"That was a huge shot," Odom said of Forte's 17-footer. "Again, great players make great plays at opportune moments and that certainly was that."
Wake Forest's Craig Dawson scored a career-high 29 points on 14-of-26 shooting, but he couldn't prevent North Carolina from snapping his team's 14-game home winning streak. Josh Howard added 20 points and 12 rebounds.
Dawson's previous high was 23 points at Temple in December.
The Tar Heels, playing as the nation's top-ranked team for the first time since March 1998, got 13 points each from Kris Lang, Brendan Haywood and Jason Capel. Haywood also had six assists and four blocks.
The Tar Heels trailed 63-58 with 8:08 left before going on a 14-2 run as Lang scored on a hook shot and follow, Haywood had a slam and layup, and Julius Peppers a dunk as North Carolina went inside when it counted.
Haywood also had a key block of a follow shot by Howard with 4:33 remaining as North Carolina stretched its lead to seven - which matched its biggest lead in the first half.
North Carolina scored on seven of eight possessions during its run and its shooting percentage snapped Wake Forest's streak of 30 straight games holding opponents to under 50 percent from the field.
"It's good to learn from an ugly game," Capel said. "It's good to learn from a game you probably should have lost. But we can get better and go back and have some real practices and go out and break a sweat and get better."
Coach Matt Doherty's team led by one point at halftime, prompting a speech about the responsibility of being No. 1.
"I told them people will play that much harder and people want to see you go down," he said. "I think sometimes when you have that No. 1 tag there is a tendency subconsciously to relax. Even though you want to fight it, human nature takes over."
Dawson, who had been slumping during ACC play, was 7-for-11 in the first half for 15 points to keep the Demon Deacons in the hunt.
North Carolina's biggest lead of the half was seven before Dawson had five points in an 11-2 run as neither team could build a double-digit margin as the Tar Heels coughed up the ball 11 times.
The Demon Deacons, plagued by foul trouble during their monthlong slump, didn't pick one up until 8:23 was gone and finished the half with just six.
But North Carolina was 9-for-20 from 3-point range to outscore the Demon Deacons 27-6 from beyond the arc and matched its longest winning streak since it started the 1997-98 season 17-0.
Read more about the UNC-Wake game in the Carolina NewsStand.
