Tar Heels Hope To Bounce Back At Clemson

Jan. 19, 2005

The University of North Carolina men's basketball team will look to bounce back from its first loss in 15 games when it visits Clemson on Wednesday evening at 9 p.m. The game will be televised regionally by Raycom/Jefferson-Pilot. No. 3/4 Carolina was riding a 14-game winning streak before losing at No. 4/3 Wake Forest last Saturday afternoon, 95-82. The Tar Heels dropped to No. 6 in both polls after the loss in Winston-Salem.

Wednesday's game at Clemson is the first of a seven-game stretch during which the Tar Heels will play five road contests. During the next seven games, Carolina will play at Clemson (Jan. 19), at Virginia (Jan. 29), at Florida State (Feb. 6), at Duke (Feb. 9) and at Connecticut (Feb. 13). The only UNC home games during this stretch will be Miami (Jan. 22) and NC State (Feb. 3).

The Tar Heels (14-2 overall, 3-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) defeated No. 22/21 Maryland 109-75 and No. 8/8 Georgia Tech 91- 69 in a five-day span last week before losing at Wake Forest.

Clemson is 10-6 and 1-3 in the ACC after last Saturday's two-point loss at Virginia Tech. The Tigers' lone ACC win this season came last Wednesday night at Florida State. After Wednesday's game, the Tar Heels will host Miami on Saturday night, Jan. 22 and visit Virginia on Jan. 2

SERIES VS. CLEMSON
Carolina leads the all-time series against Clemson, 113-19. The Tar Heels have beaten the Tigers 26 times in their last 32 meetings (since the 1990-91 season).

Carolina has lost three of their last four at Clemson. That ties for the worst four-game stretch at Clemson in program history (the other instance was three losses in four games from Jan. 29, 1977-Jan. 2, 1980).

The Tar Heels lead the series 32-15 in Clemson and 21-12 in Littlejohn Coliseum. The Tigers have won three of the last four meetings in Clemson (with UNC winning in 2001- 02).

LAST SEASON IN CLEMSON
Clemson hit 11 of 13 three-pointers and Shawan Robinson scored 24 points as the Tigers downed the Tar Heels, 81-72, in Clemson, S.C., on Jan. 31.

Clemson's school-record three-point percentage of 84.6 was the highest by an opponent in UNC history. The Tigers shot better than 50 percent from the floor overall in both halves. Tar Heel opponents have shot 50 percent or better in seven of the last nine halves of play (beginning with Connecticut in the second half on Jan. 17).

Clemson held Carolina scoreless for a span of 8:20 in the first half, outscoring the Tar Heels 14-0 during the stretch. Rashad McCants led Carolina with 26 points, his fourth 25-point performance in five games. Melvin Scott had 12 points and Jawad Williams 10. No other Tar Heel reached double figures.

LAST SEASON IN CHAPEL HILL
Rashad McCants scored 30 points and tied a school record by hitting eight three-pointers as Carolina beat Clemson in Chapel Hill on March 2 in its last home game of the season. With the win, UNC improved to 50-0 alltime in Chapel Hill vs. the Tigers, the NCAA's longest active streak of home wins over an opponent.

McCants hit eight of 13 three-pointers (including 8 of his first 10 attempts) to tie a school record for single-game three-pointers made. The mark previously was set by five other Tar Heels, most recently by Raymond Felton at NC State in 2002-03.

Sean May had 17 points and seven rebounds as the only other Carolina player to reach double- figures. Felton had seven points, four rebounds, nine assists and four steals. Sharrod Ford led Clemson with 14 points.

Carolina shot just 35.7 percent in the first half, but held the Tigers to 30.4 percent and 18 first-half points (tying the season low by a UNC opponent in 2003-04). UNC forced 23 Tiger turnovers.

Jackie Manuel was in uniform but did not play, missing his second consecutive game after spraining his right ankle in practice on Feb. 27.

NEWS & NOTES

With 19 points in the loss at Wake Forest last Saturday, Rashad McCants moved into the top 25 scorers in Carolina history. He has 1,459 points entering the Clemson game.

The Tar Heels started 3-0 in ACC play for the first time since the 2000-01 season. Carolina has won its first three conference games by an average of 30.0 points.

Marvin Williams is averaging 10.6 points per game. He would be the first Carolina non-starter to average double figures since Jerry Stackhouse scored 12.2 points per game during the 1993-94 season while starting just one of 35 games.

Freshman Marvin Williams has scored in double figures in six straight games and eight of the last nine.

The Heels are riding a 12-game winning streak at the Smith Center. That's the fifthlongest streak in the building's history. The longest was 25 games from March 4, 1992-Feb. 12, 1994. uRaymond Felton's 18 shots against Wake Forest tied for his career high. He also took 18 at Clemson as a freshman, finishing with 19 points.

Carolina has held opponents below 44 percent shooting from the field in their last 12 games. That's the longest such streak since a 14-game streak in the middle of the 2000-01 season.

In four of Carolina's last five Final Four seasons and seven of the past nine Final Four years, the Heels have lost a regular season game to Wake Forest.

Three of the four best single-game free throw shooting performances against Carolina have come in the past eight seasons. Wake Forest set an ACC record by going 32 of 32 from the line vs. UNC on Jan. 15.

With 177 steals in 16 games this year, Carolina is on pace to challenge the program's all-time single-season steals record--357 by the 1992-93 team. Other single-season records that could be reached by this team: highest scoring average per game, most three-pointers made, highest three-point field goal percentage, and most games played.

Raymond Felton has made more than 50 percent of his field goals in 10 games so far this season. Coming into this season, he had only 13 such games in his previous two seasons combined.

Sophomore Reyshawn Terry entered the Maryland game with 8:37 left in the first half and Carolina trailing 29-24. Terry helped spark the Tar Heels to a 23-5 run to end the first half and an 85-36 run to end the game.

Sophomore Reyshawn Terry had a season- high 11 points on 4 of 5 shooting vs. Maryland.

Freshman Quentin Thomas entered the Georgia Tech game in the first half and turned a 25-18 Carolina lead into a 35-20 advantage during three minutes of action. uUNC's perfect record in December was its first perfect month since January of 2001 and its first perfect December since 1998. UNC had 11 wins before Jan. 1 for the first time since going 12-3 to start the 1998-99 season.

Senior Jawad Williams is the only Tar Heel to have scored in double figures in all 16 games this season. He has done so in 18 straight games (dating to last season).

Junior Rashad McCants' streak of making a three-point field goal in 30 consecutive games was snapped at Wake Forest on Jan. 15.

Junior Raymond Felton has hit 20 of 37 three-point attempts (54.1 percent) in the last eight games.

Junior Raymond Felton has handed out 48 assists in his last six games and now has 561 in his career, the seventh-most in Tar Heel history.

Before going scoreless at Wake Forest, Melvin Scott had bounced back from a twogame scoreless streak with 48 points in five games (9.6 ppg).

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University of North Carolina Athletics

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Raymond Felton

Raymond Felton

Jackie Manuel

Sean May

Rashad McCants

Rashad McCants

Melvin Scott

Reyshawn Terry

Quentin Thomas

Jawad Williams

Marvin Williams

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