Tar Heels Fall To Hot-Shooting Wake At ACC Tournament

Thursday, March 4

Greensboro, N.C.

Noon

North Carolina

13-10,8-9ACC

Wake Forest (First Round)

12-11,8-10ACC

Wake Forest

North Carolina

Freshman Alyssa Ustby scored a career-high 23 points in Thursday's loss to Wake Forest.

Photo by: Dana Gentry

March 4, 2021 | Women's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

GREENSBORO. – For the second year in a row, the UNC women's basketball team is leaving the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament after one game, courtesy of Wake Forest. The ninth-seeded Demon Deacons beat eighth-seeded UNC 82-71 in a second-round game Thursday afternoon to cut short the Tar Heels' stay in Greensboro .

Four players scored in double figures for the Tar Heels (13-10), who now await announcement of the NCAA Tournament bracket on March 15. Play begins on March 21.

Carolina freshman Alyssa Ustby scored a career-high 23 points in the loss, shooting 11-for-17 from the field, and also had nine rebounds. Classmate Deja Kelly had 19 points and is now averaging that many over the past five games.

Grad student Stephanie Watts scored 15 points and handed out a team-best four assists. Senior Janelle Bailey had 12 points and a team-high 10 rebounds for her 44^th career double-double.

Wake Forest shot 58.8 percent (10-17) from three-point range, the high for a UNC opponent this season – breaking the mark of 46.7 set by the Demon Deacons in the teams' Dec. 20 meeting in Chapel Hill – and 52.7 percent from the field. Wake is the first team to shoot better than 50 percent against UNC this year, and the team's 82 points marked a season high for Wake against ACC opponents.

"It's pretty uncharacteristic that we would allow defense to be our (Achilles') heel – I think we've been pretty good defensively all year long," UNC coach Courtney Banghart said. "They obviously came in guns a-firing. Offensively, we didn't move the ball or our bodies with the pace or consistency we have been all year."

WFU freshman Jewel Spear hit her first five from long range and finished 7-for-10 from three for a career-high 29 points, the most by an opposing player against Carolina this season. Her seven three-pointers are equal to the ACC Tournament single-game record.

Wake's hot-shooting start – 58.8 percent from the field and 71.4 from three-point range in the first quarter – gave the Demon Deacons a nine-point lead, 25-16, heading into the second quarter. They would stretch that to 14 points on back-to-back threes by senior Gina Conti and Spear just under three minutes into the period. Kelly answered with UNC's first three of the game and the Tar Heels continued to chip away, cutting the advantage to five by halftime.

Ustby, who scored 16 after halftime, accounted for UNC's first four of the third period on back-to-back layups after the break. A three-pointer by Watts at the 6:34 mark made it a one-point game, 44-43, and the Tar Heels tied it at 47 on a put-back by Bailey with 4:56 remaining in the period.

UNC briefly led in the third period, up by three with 2:21 to play after an Ustby layup and a free throw by Watts, but the Demon Deacons tied it at 50-50 with a three-point play by Conti and the Tar Heels never held the advantage after that.

Wake Forest led 58-54 going into the fourth quarter and UNC got within two on several occasions, the last at 67-65 on a three by Watts with 5:26 to play. WFU held a 15-6 scoring advantage the rest of the way, including an 11-2 run.

The loss came exactly a year after Wake knocked the Tar Heels out of last year's ACC Tournament.

Headed back to Chapel Hill, Banghart and her team now build toward NCAA Tournament play.

"There are a lot of bright spots for this program," she said. "I know we're all proud of how far we've come and we want to really show in March how good we are.

Notes:
• Janelle Bailey scored her 1,700^th point and grabbed her 1,000^th rebound in the game, becoming the fifth player in program history to pass both milestones. She is the 16^th Tar Heel with 1,700+ points and the eighth with 1,000+ rebounds.
• With 12 points and 10 boards, Bailey – No. 44 – registered her 44^th career double-double. She ranks fourth among all active Division I players in career double-doubles.