WBB Hosts No. 17 Hokies Sunday For Pink Game

Sunday, February 4

Chapel Hill

Noon

North Carolina

Virginia Tech

Tickets

Band
University of North Carolina Women’s Basketball v Boston College
Carmichael Arena
Chapel Hill, NC
Sunday, February 12, 2023

Tar Heels host Virginia Tech Sunday at noon for their annual Play4Kay game.

Photo by: ANTHONY SORBELLINI

February 3, 2024 | Women's Basketball

Game Notes

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The No. 24 North Carolina women's basketball team takes on its second ranked opponent in a row and its ninth of the season Sunday when the Tar Heels host No. 17 Virginia Tech at Carmichael Arena. Tipoff is noon and the game will air on ESPN2.

North Carolina comes into the game at 15-6 overall and 7-3 in Atlantic Coast Conference play. Virginia Tech is 17-4 (8-2 ACC).

It's UNC's annual Play4Kay game, in support of the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. Carolina will wear its pink uniforms – white with pink trim and blue lettering – and the first 1,000 fans at the game will get pink t-shirts. Breast cancer survivors and fighters will be honored at halftime.

The teams are meeting for the first of two games this season – they'll play again in Blacksburg, Va., on Feb. 25. The last face-off in Chapel Hill was a thriller, with the Hokies winning on a last-second shot by Elizabeth Kitley.

Heels vs. Hokies
The Tar Heels and Hokies will meet Sunday for the first of two games in the regulars season and the 36th time overall in a series that dates back to the 1979-80 season. UNC leads the series 21-14, but Virginia Tech has won the last four.
• In the last matchup in Chapel Hill, on Feb. 23, 2023, Virginia Tech's Elizabeth Kitley hit the go-ahead jumper at the buzzer to lift the No. 9 Hokies to a 61-59 win over No. 22 UNC. The Tar Heels led by as many as 10 points in the first quarter and held the advantage for nearly three quarters of the game but couldn't pull out a sixth win of the season over a top-25 team.
Deja Kelly led Carolina with 18 points and six rebounds, playing all 40 minutes. Her final points, on a jumper that rolled around the rim then fell in, put UNC up 58-57 with 12.2 seconds to play. But Virginia Tech's Cayla King hit two free throws with 9.1 second remaining to again give the Hokies the lead. UNC's Alyssa Ustby made a free throw to tie the game with two seconds remaining, but Kitley broke the tie to give Virginia Tech (23-4, 13-4) the win.
Kitley finished with 21 points and became the program's all-time leading scorer during the game. Kayana Traylor scored 20 and Georgia Amoore added 10.
• UNC's last win in the series came in the previous meeting in Chapel Hill, on Jan. 9, 2022. The Tar Heels were coming off their first loss of the season, at NC State the previous Thursday. Four Tar Heels scored in double figures, led by Eva Hodgson, who came off the bench for a season-high 19 points, including 4-for-5 three-point shooting. Deja Kelly registered her first career double-double with 15 points and a team-best 10 rebounds.

Up Next
UNC has an open date on Thursday and returns to action on Sunday at Duke, making the short drive to Durham for a 2 p.m. tipoff.
• With six consecutive games at home or against in-state rivals, UNC nearly the entire month of February without leaving the state. After the trip to Raleigh, UNC has three home games (one against NC State) and trips to Duke and Wake Forest before traveling to Blacksburg, Va., to take on Virginia Tech on Feb. 25.

ACC Action Notables
Ten games into the ACC schedule, Tar Heels have put up impressive numbers in league play:
• Alyssa Ustby has grabbed at least eight rebounds in all but one ACC game (she had four at Georgia Tech) and is third in the league with 10.4 rebounds per game in conference play. On the season, she's averaging 9.5 per game, which also ranks third in the ACC.
Ustby is tied for fourth in the conference in blocks with 1.9 per ACC game. She had a career-best seven against Louisville.
• Lexi Donarski was 13-29 from three-point range through the first three games of the ACC season, including six in the ACC opener against Clemson. She's cooled off since then to go 9-36 in the last seven games but is still shooting .338 from three in conference play and .350 overall. Her average of 2.2 makes per ACC game is tied for eighth.
• Deja Kelly ranks fifth in the ACC in assist-turnover ratio at 1.68. Her 4.2 assists per game are eighth in the league. She matched her career high with eight assists against Clemson and handed out six against Louisville.