University of North Carolina Athletics
Saturday, March 18
Columbus, Ohio
4 PM
North Carolina
vs
St. John's (NCAA First Round)
The Tar Heels practiced on Friday at the Schottenstein Center.
Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati
Time To Dance: WBB Meets St. John's Saturday
March 17, 2023 | Women's Basketball
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The North Carolina women's basketball team dives into NCAA Tournament play on Saturday for the 30th time in program history, taking on St. John's at Ohio State's Schottenstein Center.
The Tar Heels are the No. 6 seed in the Seattle 3 Region and the Red Storm is the No. 11 seed after advancing out of the First Four with a win over Purdue on Thursday. The teams will meet for the seventh time, the first time since the 2008-09 season.
The game tips off at 4 p.m. and will air on ESPN. To watch online, click here. For the radio broadcast, click here.
"We're glad to be here," UNC coach Courtney Banghart said to open her press conference on Friday afternoon. "It's my 11th NCAA tournament and it just never gets old – the opportunity that awaits, the magnitude of the event ... it's a rainy day in Columbus and we're glad to be here."
Noting the rivalry
UNC and St. John's will meet for the seventh time, with Carolina having won all six of the previous meetings.
• The teams have just one previous NCAA Tournament meeting, a first-round game in Chapel Hill in the 1984 tournament. That game, an 81-79 OT win for the Tar Heels, is one of just three times that UNC has gone into overtime in NCAA Tournament play. (Carolina has won all three of those OT games.)
• In the teams' most recent meeting, UNC won 83-73 in Chapel Hill on Dec. 6, 2008.
Dancing Heels
North Carolina earned an at-large NCAA Tournament bid for the third year in a row and is seeded sixth in the Seattle 3 Region.
• UNC is making its 30th NCAA Tournament appearance and is 49-28 overall with an NCAA Championship in 1994 and Final Fours in 1994, 2006 and 2007.
• Carolina is one of just seven schools, all of which are in this year's field, to have been part of the tournament field 30 or more times. The others are Tennessee (41), Georgia (36), Stanford (36), Texas (35), UConn (34) and Maryland (30).
• UNC is playing as a No. 6 seed for just the second time in school history. The first was in 1985, when the Tar Heels fell in the first round at third-seeded Penn State in a 32-team field.
• Last season, North Carolina was a No. 5 seed and won two games in Tucson, Ariz., to reach the Sweet 16 for the 18th time in program history.
• The Tar Heels are 22-1 all-time in NCAA Tournament games in Chapel Hill and 27-27 in games away from home.
Milestone watch
Junior Alyssa Ustby, who will celebrate her birthday on Saturday, heads into the St. John's game 10 points away from reaching 1,000 for her career. When she does hit that milestone, she'll be the 40th player in program history to do so and the third on this year's team, joining Eva Hodgson, who passed 1,000 at the beginning of the 2021-22 season after scoring the first 914 points of her career at William & Mary, and Deja Kelly, who reached that milestone at Miami on Jan. 5.
Kennedy Todd-Williams is 103 points from reaching 1,000 for her career.
Familiar Storm
The St. John's roster includes three players who started their careers in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Jayla Everett, who leads the Red Storm with 16 points per game, played the past two seasons at Pitt before transferring to SJU.
"Jayla has been a great player in our league, she's got a ton of experience," Banghart said. "A really gifted offensive player that's going to require a good defensive effort by us, one through 11."
Redshirt senior Danielle Cosgrove played her first three years at Notre Dame before transferring to St. John's prior to the 2021-22 season – she spent 2019-20 and 2020-21 at Indiana.
Graduate student Danielle Patterson played her freshman and sophomore years at Notre Dame but had already left the ACC by the time any of the current UNC players were in the league.
Scouting Report
The downside of playing a First Four team is that the Tar Heels didn't know until Thursday around 9 p.m. who their first-round opponent would be. But a possible upside is that the Tar Heels were in the stands at the Schottenstein Center Thursday to watch the Red Storm play in person.
Juniors Deja Kelly and Alyssa Ustby were asked on Friday about their observations in that game.
"I see a gritty team that's very physical, they're tough, they like to play fast," Kelly said. "They try to make you play outside your rhythm. That's kind of what we saw throughout the game. They just played really well, they disrupted Purdue's offense."
"I thought St. John's was just a really well-rounded basketball team," Ustby said. "We just have to expect that come March – everyone is playing hopefully their best basketball. So I know we're going to get a great game tomorrow night."
The Tar Heels are the No. 6 seed in the Seattle 3 Region and the Red Storm is the No. 11 seed after advancing out of the First Four with a win over Purdue on Thursday. The teams will meet for the seventh time, the first time since the 2008-09 season.
The game tips off at 4 p.m. and will air on ESPN. To watch online, click here. For the radio broadcast, click here.
"We're glad to be here," UNC coach Courtney Banghart said to open her press conference on Friday afternoon. "It's my 11th NCAA tournament and it just never gets old – the opportunity that awaits, the magnitude of the event ... it's a rainy day in Columbus and we're glad to be here."
And roll the video 📽 pic.twitter.com/Sab2jGhSMl— Carolina Women's Basketball (@uncwbb) March 17, 2023
Noting the rivalry
UNC and St. John's will meet for the seventh time, with Carolina having won all six of the previous meetings.
• The teams have just one previous NCAA Tournament meeting, a first-round game in Chapel Hill in the 1984 tournament. That game, an 81-79 OT win for the Tar Heels, is one of just three times that UNC has gone into overtime in NCAA Tournament play. (Carolina has won all three of those OT games.)
• In the teams' most recent meeting, UNC won 83-73 in Chapel Hill on Dec. 6, 2008.
Dancing Heels
North Carolina earned an at-large NCAA Tournament bid for the third year in a row and is seeded sixth in the Seattle 3 Region.
• UNC is making its 30th NCAA Tournament appearance and is 49-28 overall with an NCAA Championship in 1994 and Final Fours in 1994, 2006 and 2007.
• Carolina is one of just seven schools, all of which are in this year's field, to have been part of the tournament field 30 or more times. The others are Tennessee (41), Georgia (36), Stanford (36), Texas (35), UConn (34) and Maryland (30).
• UNC is playing as a No. 6 seed for just the second time in school history. The first was in 1985, when the Tar Heels fell in the first round at third-seeded Penn State in a 32-team field.
• Last season, North Carolina was a No. 5 seed and won two games in Tucson, Ariz., to reach the Sweet 16 for the 18th time in program history.
• The Tar Heels are 22-1 all-time in NCAA Tournament games in Chapel Hill and 27-27 in games away from home.
Milestone watch
Junior Alyssa Ustby, who will celebrate her birthday on Saturday, heads into the St. John's game 10 points away from reaching 1,000 for her career. When she does hit that milestone, she'll be the 40th player in program history to do so and the third on this year's team, joining Eva Hodgson, who passed 1,000 at the beginning of the 2021-22 season after scoring the first 914 points of her career at William & Mary, and Deja Kelly, who reached that milestone at Miami on Jan. 5.
Kennedy Todd-Williams is 103 points from reaching 1,000 for her career.
Familiar Storm
The St. John's roster includes three players who started their careers in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Jayla Everett, who leads the Red Storm with 16 points per game, played the past two seasons at Pitt before transferring to SJU.
"Jayla has been a great player in our league, she's got a ton of experience," Banghart said. "A really gifted offensive player that's going to require a good defensive effort by us, one through 11."
Redshirt senior Danielle Cosgrove played her first three years at Notre Dame before transferring to St. John's prior to the 2021-22 season – she spent 2019-20 and 2020-21 at Indiana.
Graduate student Danielle Patterson played her freshman and sophomore years at Notre Dame but had already left the ACC by the time any of the current UNC players were in the league.
Scouting Report
The downside of playing a First Four team is that the Tar Heels didn't know until Thursday around 9 p.m. who their first-round opponent would be. But a possible upside is that the Tar Heels were in the stands at the Schottenstein Center Thursday to watch the Red Storm play in person.
Juniors Deja Kelly and Alyssa Ustby were asked on Friday about their observations in that game.
"I see a gritty team that's very physical, they're tough, they like to play fast," Kelly said. "They try to make you play outside your rhythm. That's kind of what we saw throughout the game. They just played really well, they disrupted Purdue's offense."
"I thought St. John's was just a really well-rounded basketball team," Ustby said. "We just have to expect that come March – everyone is playing hopefully their best basketball. So I know we're going to get a great game tomorrow night."
It's all been building to this ...
𝙉𝘾𝘼𝘼 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙬 ⚡️#GoHeels | #InPursuit | #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/PFLe83HzSa— Carolina Women's Basketball (@uncwbb) March 18, 2023
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