University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Clemson
No. 6 Tar Heels Take Down Tigers
January 20, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 19, 2005
By PETE IACOBELLI
AP Sports Writer
CLEMSON, S.C. (AP) - North Carolina coach Roy Williams was angry at halftime - and he made sure his team knew it.
Sean May and Jawad Williams were playing soft in the middle. The defense was abysmal. And point guard Raymond Felton had already committed four turnovers.
"I'd have hit him upside the head with a two-by-four if I had one," the coach said.
The sixth-ranked Tar Heels listened and responded. Rashad McCants scored 17 of his 23 points in the second half and North Carolina overcame a sluggish start to defeat Clemson 77-58 Wednesday night.
The Tar Heels committed 16 turnovers in the first half and went through a pair of scoring droughts that totaled almost 11 minutes.But McCants hit consecutive 3-pointers to close a 19-7 run at the start of the second half that put North Carolina ahead to stay, 46-34, with 12:07 left.
The difference, according to McCants, was the team came out and competed hard.
"This isn't mathematics," he said. "I don't understand. We just got to play, play hard all the time. We didn't run any trick plays, didn't do anything we hadn't done before. We just have to play hard."
Not everything went McCants' way. Moments after his 3s, he drove for a high-flying jam and was called for a technical as he lifted himself up on the rim before letting go.
He jogged back to the other end, hands up as if to say "I didn't do it" and shaking his head as the large crowd screamed at him.
McCants ended his night with one more two-handed dunk with about two minutes left.
But Roy Williams didn't leave Littlejohn Coliseum gushing over McCants' play or Felton's double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds.
"I'm extremely happy with the road win, but extremely ticked with the way we played," he said.
Still, any win at Clemson has been hard to come by. While the Tar Heels hold a 50-0 edge all-time over the Tigers (10-7, 1-4) in Chapel Hill, N.C., this was just their second victory in the last five meetings here. In an 81-72 Clemson home victory last season, the team made 11 of 13 3-pointers to pull the upset.
"I think the basketball gods owed us," Roy Williams said. "I really do."
North Carolina, which had won 14 straight before falling to the Demon Deacons, finished with five players in double figures.
May said his coach didn't spare many players during his halftime talk.
"He singled us out," May said. "We were men and we took it and we came out in the second half and played better."
Freshman Cheyenne Moore made four 3-pointers and led Clemson with a career-high 14 points.
It was the Tigers' second big home loss in the last two weeks. Wake Forest won at Littlejohn 103-68 on Jan. 8.
No one on Clemson could get going. Starting guards Shawan Robinson (1-of-11 from the floor) and Cliff Hammonds (2-of-6) combined to go 0-of-9 from behind the arc.
"We needed a bigger game out of Shawan," Clemson coach Oliver Purnell said.
North Carolina jumped out to a 19-8 lead before sloppy play and bad shooting got the Tigers back in it.
The Tar Heels went 5:45 between points, then followed that up with a cold streak of 5:13. They also had 16 of their 21 turnovers in the opening period.
North Carolina's first-half turnovers nearly matched its game average of 17.8.
"We threw the dadgum thing anywhere and everywhere," Roy Williams groused.
Moore hit two 3-pointers in a 14-2 run that pushed the Tigers in front, 22-21, with 1:51 left in the half.
Jawad Williams put back McCants' missed 3-pointer with 12.9 seconds to go, tying the score at 27 at halftime.
