WBB Stumbles At No. 5 Indiana, 87-63

Thursday, December 1

Bloomington, Ind

6 PM

North Carolina

Indiana

the Tar Heels fell 87-63 at Indiana on Thursday.

December 1, 2022 | Women's Basketball

Box Score

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Hot-shooting Indiana handed the North Carolina women's basketball team its first loss of the season on Thursday night, 87-63 at the Hoosiers' Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in a top-10 matchup, the Tar Heels' second in as many games.

No. 5 Indiana improved to 8-0 with a win in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge matchup. The sixth-ranked Tar Heels, coming off a win over then-No.-5 Iowa State, fell to 6-1.

"It was their night and definitely not ours, and that's a bad combination," UNC coach Courtney Banghart said.

Junior Kennedy Todd-Williams led UNC with 20 points, equal to her career high, which was established six games ago in the season opener. She hit a career-best four three-pointers in six attempts and also had three rebounds, two assists and a block.

Deja Kelly added 11 points and a team-best seven assists to go with only one turnover, burnishing her conference-best assist-turnover ratio. Teonni Key also hit double figures for the Tar Heels, scoring 10 points for her second consecutive double-digit game and third in the past five outings.

On the other end of the court, Indiana shot 53.3 percent from the field and 54.5 from long range. The Hoosiers hit five of their six three-point attempts in the first quarter and 11-17 through three quarters (64.7 percent) before making just one of six in the fourth. Amidst the three-point barrage – IU's 12 is the most by an opponent this season – Mackenzie Holmes scored 25 points inside to lead the Hoosiers. Sydney Parrish had 24, including four threes. Sara Scalia also hit four from long range and finished with 12.

"They shot really well and we didn't guard the arc, we didn't guard the paint, we didn't guard penetration, we didn't guard connected,": Banghart said. "We just were uncharacteristically not good on that end."

After trailing at halftime in their past three games, it looked like the Tar Heels might get rolling early in this one. UNC jumped out to a 7-0 lead on threes by Kelly and Todd-Williams and a free throw by the latter. But the home team scored the next 13 points and UNC didn't lead again.

The Hoosiers pushed their lead to double-digits early in the second quarter on a three by Parrish that made it 32-21. The Tar Heels were never able to get the margin in single digits after that.

The Hoosiers led 49-33 at halftime after shooting 67 percent overall and 83 percent from three-point range in the first 20 minutes.

Carolina's 63 points marked a season low in scoring on a season-low 35.4 percent shooting, even as UNC had its best three-point shooting game of the season, hitting 7-14 for a season-best 50 percent while equaling the previous season high with seven makes.

The game was UNC fourth straight away from home but the second this season on an opponent's home court. Banghart credited the Assembly Hall crowd of 5,939 with providing an advantage that her team didn't handle well.

"I thought defensively we didn't play with toughness that you have to play with in this environment," Banghart said. "Hopefully we can learn from this, because we'll have more environments like this."

After a break for the start of final exams, UNC returns to action on Wednesday, hosting UNCW at Carmichael Arena.