Six Score In Double Figures As WBB Wins, 81-66

Wednesday, December 6

Chapel Hill

7 PM

North Carolina

6-3,0-0ACC

UNC Greensboro

6-3,0-0SoCon

UNC Greensboro

North Carolina

Indya Nivar, Lexi Donarski and Maria Gakdeng (left to right) were among six Tar Heels who scored in double figures on Wednesday.

Photo by: AINSLEY E. FAUTH

December 6, 2023 | Women's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Six Tar Heels scored in double figures as the No. 24 North Carolina women's basketball team used a balanced effort to beat hot-shooting UNC Greensboro 81-66 at Carmichael Arena Wednesday evening and improve to 6-3 on the year.

Graduate student Lexi Donarski hit six of her eight three-point attempts and finished with 22 points, her high so far in nine games as a Tar Heel. Senior Alyssa Ustby scored 13 points on 6-9 shooting and tied her career high with six assists. Junior Maria Gakdeng and senior Deja Kelly finished with 12 points each, and Kelly also tied her career high in assists with eight.

Sophomore Indya Nivar, making her second start as a Tar Heel, scored 11 points and grabbed a team-high nine rebounds. And senior Anya Poole came off the bench for 11 points on 5-6 shooting from the field.

UNC Greensboro's Kennedy Simpson was 5-for-5 from three-point range for 15 points off the bench, with four of those in the second quarter when the visitors held a 25-14 scoring edge. Isys Grady led the Spartans (6-3) with 17 points.

"Hats off to Greensboro, they played a great game," UNC coach Courtney Banghart said. "Obviously we'll watch it back but I don't think we gave up a lot of uncontested twos tonight and they made a lot of great shots."

Carolina used a 9-0 run early to roll out to an 11-2 lead in the first four minutes of play and held a 16-point lead, the home team's largest of the game, by late in the first quarter. The Tar Heels were up 22-9 at the end of the first period, marking the seventh quarter this season in which they've held an opponent to single digits.

The Spartans roared back in the second quarter, shooting 52.9 percent from the field and hitting all five of their three-point attempts. They tied the game at 34-34 on a putback with 11 seconds to play before halftime, but Ustby made a layup just before the buzzer to send UNC into the break with a two-point advantage.

Donarski drained a three to open the third quarter and spark a 10-0 Tar Heel run that gave them a bit of breathing room. The Spartans got back within five late in that quarter and cut the margin to three at the start of the fourth, but Carolina never gave up the lead, stretching it to 15 on back-to-back threes by Donarski and Nivar in final minutes.

"It feels good to see the ball go in but also as a team, we got the looks that we wanted and we were really unselfish with the ball to get those right looks," Donarski said.

UNC finished with 20 assists, its second-highest total of the season, and outscored the visitors 38-16 in the paint.

The win, Carolina's 13^th in a row against the Spartans, snapped a three-game losing skid for the Tar Heels. The three losses came by a combined 15 points and two of them were to teams now ranked in the top 13 nationally, No. 13 Kansas State and No. 1 South Carolina.

Next up for the Tar Heels is another ranked opponent: No. 17 UConn in the Hall of Fame Women's Showcase on Sunday in Uncasville, Conn. The Tar Heels and the Huskies, UNC's third ranked opponent in a five-game span, tip off at 5 p.m. and the game will air on ESPN.