Four Hit Double Figures As WBB Beats Davidson

Sunday, November 12

Chapel Hill

6 PM

North Carolina

2-0,0-0ACC

Davidson

2-1,0-0Atlantic 10

Davidson

North Carolina

Lexi Donarski finished with 15 points for the Tar Heels.

Photo by: Jerome M. Ibrahim

November 12, 2023 | Women's Basketball

Box Score

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Behind four Tar Heels in double figures, the North Carolina women's basketball team outlasted Davidson 74-70 on Sunday evening at Carmichael Arena to improve to 2-0 on the season.

UNC is back in action on Wednesday for an 11 a.m. home game against Hampton.

Senior Deja Kelly led UNC with 18 points against the Wildcats. She also handed out seven assists, one short of matching her career high, to go with five rebounds and two steals in 36 minutes. Graduate student Lexi Donarski and junior Maria Gakdeng scored 15 each and senior Alyssa Ustby added 11 points and a team-high nine rebounds.

Davidson's Charlise Dunn came off the bench for 21 points, including five three-pointers. Millie Prior scored 20 on 8-10 shooting and Elle Sutphin added 17, hitting four of her five three-point attempts for the Wildcats, who fell to 2-1 after their second Atlantic Coast Conference matchup in as many days. (Davidson beat Wake Forest 57-52 at home on Saturday.)

UNC opened up a sizeable lead early, shooting 60 percent from the field in the first quarter to go up 23-13 after 10 minutes of play. But the home team lost some steam in the second, scoring just two points in the first five minutes and 11 in the quarter as Davidson got as close as six. The Tar Heels were up by eight, 34-26 at halftime.

The Tar Heels heated up again in the third quarter, but the Wildcats did, too. The visitors pulled within five, 42-37, after a 6-0 run in the course of 54 seconds midway through the third quarter. Meanwhile the Tar Heels went 2:24 without a bucket.

Coming out of the timeout UNC responded with an 8-0 run of its own to go up 52-39 with 2:24 to play in the quarter after a pair of free throws by Kelly.

That proved to be Carolina's largest lead of the game. The Wildcats shaved the advantage to single-digits, 58-48, by the end of the third quarter and never let the Tar Heels get more breathing room than that. Davidson took a two-point lead, 64-62, on a three by Dunn with 5:10 to play.

After the teams traded the lead, UNC got it back for good on a put-back by Ustby with 3:40 to play. That made the score 67-66 Carolina and Donarski boosted that to four with a three-pointer just over a minute later. Gakdeng and Donarski both made free throws in the final seconds to preserve the win. "For a relatively new roster, how they handled adversity is a good sign," UNC coach Courtney Banghart said.

Banghart also credited the crowd, acknowledging it's been a busy 24 hours for Carolina fans, with many staying up for a double-overtime football win Saturday night and then hitting the men's basketball game Sunday afternoon. "What a great environment it was in there, given that there was a lot going on at Carolina," she said of Carmichael. "I give our crowd a lot of credit, they helped us through it."