WBB Falls To No. 16 Kansas State, 63-56

Saturday, November 25

Estero, Fla.

5 PM

North Carolina

Kansas State

The Tar Heels cut a double-digit deficit down to two in the fourth quarter but couldn't pull out the win.

Photo by: Tessa Mortensen

November 25, 2023 | Women's Basketball

Box Score

ESTERO, Fla. – A late run came up just short for North Carolina on Saturday evening as the No. 18 Tar Heels dropped a women's basketball battle to No. 16 Kansas State, 63-56 in the semifinals of the Gulf Coast Showcase at Hertz Arena.

The loss was the first of the season for the Tar Heels, now 5-1 overall. They'll face Florida Gulf Coast Sunday at 5 p.m. in the tournament's third-place game.

"It was good to see our fight," UNC coach Courtney Banghart said. "I thought to force 21 turnovers, get 13 steals, that's a game you usually win. But not when you shoot 2 for 20 from three ... (we were) inefficient from two, not good enough from the free throw line and abysmal from three. You've got to score to win games against good teams and we struggled to do that."

Senior guard Deja Kelly led UNC with 14 points and a career-high five steals, and redshirt sophomore guard Kayla McPherson added a season-high 11 as Carolina struggled through its second consecutive game of chilly shooting. The Tar Heels were just 2-20 from three-point range and shot 37 percent overall from the field. They were 61.5 percent (8-13) from the foul line, the second-lowest percentage of the season after only Friday's 46.2.

Friday in the team's first game in Florida, Carolina made a late rally to beat Vermont 54-51 in its lowest-scoring game of the season. The Tar Heels were 2-16 from three-point range in that game and came into Saturday's looking for better shooting.

They didn't get that from the start. UNC was 4-15 from the field and 0-4 from three in the first quarter and trailed 16-8 going into the second. After that, the Tar Heels steadily found their footing, although they missed their first 10 three-point attempts before Kelly finally made one in the third quarter.

Carolina trailed by 10 – 32-22 – at the break but continued to chip away, looking for an ending similar to Friday's. Kelly's three made it a seven-point game, then McPherson cut the margin to five with a pair of free throws. UNC got as close as three twice – on a jumper by Lexi Donarski with 3:43 in the quarter and then one by Kelly with 3:04 – but the Wildcats increased their margin to eight and then still led by five heading into the fourth quarter.

Carolina kept batting and got within two twice in the fourth quarter, first on an Indya Nivar jumper coming out of a timeout at the 5:45 mark then on a three-point play by Anya Poole with 1:54 to play that made the score 56-53. The Tar Heels scored just one more time, on a layup and free throw by McPherson with 26 seconds remaining that again trimmed the margin back to three. Although they made just two field goals in the fourth quarter, the Wildcats were 13-18 at the line to keep control of the game.

UNC was outrebounded 46-25 but forced the Wildcats into 21 turnovers and scored 15 points off of those. The Tar Heels committed 11 turnovers and made 13 steals, their second-highest total of the young season.

The matchup with the Wildcats was UNC's first of the season against a ranked team.