Women's Basketball Falls At Miami

Monday, December 14

Coral Gables, Fla.

2:00 PM

North Carolina

5-2,0-2ACC

Miami

4-1,1-1ACC

North Carolina

Miami (FL)

Kennedy Todd-Williams and the Tar Heels fell at Miami on Monday. (Photo by Kevin Ortiz/Miami)

December 14, 2020 | Women's Basketball

Box Score

By: UNC Athletic Communications

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The North Carolina women's basketball team dropped an Atlantic Coast Conference road game Monday afternoon, falling 67-63 at Miami. Playing at the Hurricanes' Watsco Center, the Tar Heels trailed through most of the game but never stopped fighting and cut the margin to two points with 25 seconds to play.

UNC falls to 5-2 overall and 0-2 in the ACC, with the two losses coming on the road by a combined seven points.

Freshman Alyssa Ustby came off the bench to lead UNC with a career-high 17 points on 7-for-10 shooting. In 29 minutes of play, she also had eight rebounds and a career-high four steals.

Senior Janelle Bailey notched her first double-double of the season and the 38^th of her career with 14 points and a team-high 13 rebounds.

Freshman Deja Kelly scored 16 points, nine of which came in the final 1:14 of play.

After opening with two road games – UNC fell 57-54 at Wake Forest last Thursday – the Tar Heels play their next two games at home, hosting Syracuse on Thursday and the Demon Deacons on Sunday.

"Our young guys have grown a lot," said UNC coach Courtney Banghart, noting that the team relies heavily on its freshman class, the members of which have worn their road uniforms only twice. "I love this team and I think we'll keep getting better."

Miami is now 4-1 overall, 1-1 in ACC play. Redshirt junior Destiny Harden led the Hurricanes with 20 points and two seniors – Taylor Mason and Kelsey Marshall – added 11 points each.

UNC's biggest lead of the game was at 6-2 just over three minutes into the action. Miami was up by two heading into the second quarter and stretched that lead to 10, 33-23, by halftime. Late in the third quarter, with UM still up by 10, Ustby hit back-to-back buckets and Kelly added a jumper to make it a six-point margin heading into the fourth quarter. The Tar Heels outscored the home team 22-18 in the third quarter and would hold an 18-16 advantage in the fourth, but couldn't quite pull ahead. Kelly hit two of three three-point attempts in the fourth quarter to key a late run, but Miami held on for the win.

"The ACC games have been a big opportunity for us younger kids to learn and to grow," Ustby said. "We have great models in our senior leaders – Janelle Bailey, Steph Watts and Petra (Holešínská). We're just going to keep getting better every game."

After struggling from three-point range at Wake Forest Thursday (UNC was 2-18), the Tar Heels had another tough day on Monday, going 3-19 (.158). Carolina combined that with a season-low 10-for-22 (.455) shooting day from the foul line. UNC committed 15 turnovers compared with 11 by Miami.

Both UNC and Miami were scheduled to play other opponents on Sunday but after Covid protocols forced postponement of those games, a matchup was scheduled as quickly as Carolina could find a flight. The teams were set to play just once this season, in Coral Gables in January, but they'll now meet twice, with UM coming to Carmichael Arena for a rematch on Jan. 10.