Women's Basketball Earns First Road Win, 89-33 At Charlotte

Sunday, November 14

Charlotte, N.C.

3:30 PM

North Carolina

2-0,0-0ACC

Charlotte

-11,00 CUSA

North Carolina

Charlotte

Destiny Adams and the Tar Heels earned an 89-33 win at Charlotte on Sunday.

Photo by: Mike Slade

November 14, 2021 | Women's Basketball

Box Score

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The North Carolina women's basketball team passed its first road test with flying colors, beating host Charlotte 89-33 at Halton Arena on Sunday afternoon. The Tar Heels improve to 2-0 as they head home to host Appalachian State on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

The victory was the 1,000^th in North Carolina program history, dating back to the 1974-75 season, the first for UNC women's basketball as a varsity program under the umbrella of the Department of Athletics.

"I'm so proud to be part of the legacy of a program that just earned its 1,000^th win," UNC coach Courtney Banghart said after the game. "I knew when I came to this program I was taking over one of the great traditions in women's basketball. Our kids showed with great connectedness and effort today what that means. It was really fitting that this was the 1,000^th win."

Carolina led throughout, with a slew of standout performances. Alyssa Ustby paced the Tar Heels with 18 points and 12 rebounds for her third career double-double and first of her sophomore season. She was 8-for-11 from the floor, hitting her only three-point attempt, and handed out a team-best five assists.

Anya Poole, also a sophomore, added a career-high 17 points on 7-for-10 shooting, grabbed nine rebounds and notched a career-high three blocks. A third sophomore, Kennedy Todd-Williams, equaled her career high with 14 points and grabbed nine rebounds. Sophomore guard Deja Kelly also hit double figures with 13 points, including 7-for-8 shooting from the foul line to lead the team's 14-for-18 (77.8) day.

The Tar Heels shot better than 50 percent from the field for the second game in a row. They hit 61.1 (11-18) of their shots in the first quarter, dipped below 40 in the second and third quarters and came back to make a sizzling 80 percent of their shots (12-15) in the final period.

They also won the battle of the boards by a significant margin, 50-27.

UNC and Charlotte were meeting for the second year in a row, after a narrow win by the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill last year, 81-75 on Dec. 6, 2020, in a game that was close throughout. This time around, Carolina was in command from the start, rolling out to a 9-0 lead before the 49ers got on the scoreboard.

Coming out of the first media timeout leading 9-2, the Tar Heels got back-to-back-to-back layups from Carlie Littlefield, Ustby, then Littlefield again to extend the lead to 15-2, at which point Charlotte called another timeout. The Tar Heel momentum kept building, though, and they led 27-3 after the first period.

The Tar Heels cooled off in the second period, hitting seven of their 18 shots but still extending their lead as Charlotte hit just three of 11 in the second quarter for a 4-for-27 line in the first half. Carolina led 46-11 at halftime after a pair of free throws that Eva Hodgson hit with .4 seconds on the clock.

UNC continued to increase its lead, with the final score the largest margin of the game. All 11 players who saw action scored.

"This was an example of us playing together," Ustby said. "We were playing cohesively on offense and defense and it was just a great win. We had a lot of contributors, and we held each other accountable on defense – that's a huge thing in order to get those tough team wins."

The Tar Heels outscored the 49ers 44-4 in the paint and got 31 points off of Charlotte's 24 turnovers. UNC had 10 steals, including two each from Littlefield, Hodgson, junior Malu Tshitenge and freshman Destiny Adams.

UNC becomes the 18^th NCAA Division I program to reach the 1,000 victories mark, and just the second among current ACC members, with the other being Notre Dame.