MBB Hosting Wolfpack Saturday Afternoon

• Carolina hosts NC State in the Smith Center on Saturday, March 2, at 4 p.m. on ESPN.
• The Tar Heels are 22-6, including 14-3 in the ACC. Carolina is ranked No. 9 in the country in the Associated Press poll, UNC's 10th straight top-10 ranking and 701st all-time.
• Carolina leads the ACC, one game ahead of Duke. UNC has secured a top-4 seed in the ACC Tournament. The Tar Heels will begin play in Washington, D.C., in the quarterfinal round on Thursday, March 14 (time TBA).
• On January 10 in Raleigh, the Tar Heels held the Wolfpack to 27.3% shooting in a 67-54 victory. RJ Davis led Carolina with 16 points, and Harrison Ingram had a career-high 19 rebounds, the most ever by a Tar Heel in the series history.
• Carolina defeated Miami, 75-71, on Monday to sweep the two games against the Hurricanes in the regular season. The Tar Heels also have two wins this season over Florida State and split a pair with Clemson and Syracuse.
• RJ Davis broke the Smith Center scoring record with a career-high 42 points in the win over the Canes. It was Carolina's 562nd game in the Smith Center, and he broke Tyler Hansbrough's record of 40 points set in 2006 against Georgia Tech. Davis made 14 field goals, a career-high seven three-pointers and seven free throws in becoming the 10th Tar Heel to score 40 or more points in a game.
• On January 22, Davis scored a then-career-high 36 points against Wake Forest. Tar Heels have scored 36 or more points eight times in the 39-year history of the Smith Center – Davis, Hansbrough, Antawn Jamison and Joseph Forte all have accomplished that twice.
• Prior to his 42-point performance, Davis was 1 for 14 from the floor in Carolina's 54-44 win at Virginia on Feb. 24. In 10 games since the start of his sophomore season in which Davis made two or fewer field goals, he averaged 18.6 points in the following game. That includes nine double-figure games, four with 20 or more points, two with 30 or more (30 vs. Baylor in the 2022 NCAA second round) and 42 vs. Miami.
• NC State is 17-11, 9-8 in the ACC.
• UNC is 12-1 in the Smith Center this season, while NC State is 4-5 on the road.
• Armando Bacot will be playing in his 161st game, tying Virginia's Kihei Clark for the all-time ACC record.
• Saturday is the 50th anniversary of one of the most famous games in ACC history. On 3/2/1974, Duke led UNC, 86-78, with 17 seconds to play. Free throws by Bobby Jones and layups by John Kuester and Jones cut the deficit to two. The Tar Heels tied the game when Walter Davis took a halfcourt pass from Mitch Kupchak and banked in a jumper as time expired. The Tar Heels went on to win, 96-92, in overtime.

GAME 29 NOTEBOOK
Carolina is 14-3 in the ACC for the first time since beginning conference play 15-2 (and finishing 16-2) in 2018-19.
• The Tar Heels have won 22 games, the program's 64th season with 20 or more wins.
• Hubert Davis and Bill Guthridge (1997-2000) are the only Tar Heel head coaches to win 20 or more games in each of their first three seasons. Davis led Carolina to 29 wins and a berth in the national championship game in 2022 and 20 wins last season.
• The Tar Heels are 5-2 against AP-ranked opponents this season with wins over No. 20 Arkansas, No. 10 Tennessee, No. 7 Oklahoma, No. 16 Clemson and No. 7 Duke (rankings when UNC played those teams).
• ESPN ranks UNC's strength of record No. 6 in the country.
• Carolina's schedule is ranked 12th in the country by KenPom and 12th by ESPN.
• Among the 28 teams in the country with 22 or more wins, only Purdue has a stronger strength of schedule than UNC per ESPN.
• The Tar Heels are No. 7 in the country in defensive efficiency (93.4 points allowed per 100 possessions) and No. 25 in offensive efficiency (117.6 points scored per 100 possessions).
• Overall, KenPom ranks UNC No. 9 in the country.
• Carolina is 7-2 this season on the road (all in ACC play).
• Through Feb. 29, the Tar Heels, Creighton and South Carolina were the only teams in the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC with seven road wins.
• From January 6-22, Carolina won seven straight ACC games by double digits, most since winning 10 straight in 1992-93. UNC has won nine of its 14 ACC games by double digits, including a 15-point win over Virginia Tech and a 10-point road win over Virginia in its last two starts.
• Carolina's defense has held ACC opponents to 39.7% from the floor (second in the ACC, 28th in the nation) and 29.5% from three-point range (second in the ACC, 31st in the nation).
• The Tar Heels have held ACC opponents below 70 points in 22 of the last 35 games.
• Carolina has out-rebounded its opponents in 17 straight games and is plus 163 on the boards in those games, 14 of which were victories.
• Carolina's 75-68 win at Florida State on January 27 was UNC's 750th regular-season ACC win, becoming the first program to win 750.
• Carolina has six players who have started 50 or more college games (159 by Armando Bacot, 113 by Cormac Ryan, 109 by RJ Davis, 90 by Harrison Ingram, 67 by Jae'Lyn Withers and 58 by Paxson Wojcik).
• Should the Tar Heels start the same lineup against NC State they have started the last 21 games (Elliott Cadeau, Ryan, Davis, Ingram and Bacot) that group would have a combined 499 career starts.
• The Tar Heels went 6-1 in November, 3-2 in December, 8-1 in January and the win over Miami capped a 5-2 record in February.
• Hubert Davis is one of 15 candidates on the Atlanta Tipoff Club/Naismith Award's late-season watch list for National Coach-of-the-Year honors.

UNC-NC STATE
• Carolina is 165-80 all-time against NC State, including a 67-54 win in Raleigh on Jan. 10.
• The 165 wins are tied for the most wins by UNC against an opponent with Wake Forest.
• The Tar Heels are 81-23 vs. the Wolfpack in Chapel Hill, including 30-7 in the Smith Center. Carolina has won five in a row in Chapel Hill.
• Carolina is 37-6 in the last 43 games and 54-13 over the last 32 seasons.

WINS/LOSSES
• The Tar Heels allow 67.0 points in their 22 wins, while the opponents are scoring 82.8 per game in the six losses.
• UNC has held the opponents to 70 or fewer points in 16 of the 22 wins, while the opponents have scored 80 or more points in five of the six losses.
• Carolina is shooting 45.5% from the floor in the wins and 42.3% in the losses.
• The opponents are making 6.6 threes per game and shooting only 29.3% from three in UNC's wins. In the losses, the opponents are averaging 8.5 threes per game at 35.4%. That includes Georgia Tech (45.0%), Clemson (35.5%) and Syracuse (47.1%) in the last three losses.
• The Tar Heels are shooting 76.1% from the free throw line in the wins and 69.6% in the losses.
• The Tar Heels make 7.0 more free throws per game in their wins, while the opponents have made 3.5 more per game in the losses.
• UNC has a positive rebound margin of 8.6 per game in the wins and a margin of 0.2 per game in its six losses.
• Carolina has shot a higher three-point percentage than its opponents in 13 of its last 19 games. It won all 13 games in which the Tar Heels shot a higher percentage from three and lost four of the six games (Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Clemson and Syracuse) in which the opponents shot a better percentage from three.

MILESTONE WATCH
• Armando Bacot has scored 2,203 points, third most all-time by a Tar Heel ... needs 88 to pass Phil Ford (2,290) for second.
• Bacot needs six points to pass Wake Forest's Randolph Childress (2,208) for 18th in ACC career scoring and 23 to pass Georgia Tech's Matt Harpring (2,225) for 17th.
• Bacot has 1,628 rebounds, most ever by a Tar Heel and second most in ACC history ... Bacot is 12th in rebounds in NCAA history after passing Louisville's Charlie Tyra ... he needs 46 to pass Morehead State's Kenneth Faried (1,673) for 11th.
• Bacot is seventh in NCAA history with 82 double-doubles ... Syracuse's Derrick Coleman and La Salle's Lionel Simmons (83) are tied for fifth.
• Bacot is fourth in UNC history with 823 field goals ... needs three to pass Al Wood (825) for third.
• RJ Davis has scored 1,912 points, which is tied for 10th in UNC history with Brad Daugherty ... needs one point to pass Daugherty for 10th outright and 63 to pass Antawn Jamison (1,974) for ninth.
• Davis has made 251 three-pointers, the third most all-time by a Tar Heel ... Marcus Paige is first (299) and Joel Berry II is second (266).
• Davis has 399 assists, which ties Shammond Williams for 18th in UNC history ... needs one to pass Williams and 11 to pass Walter Davis (409) for 17th place.
• Davis had six rebounds against Miami to increase his career total to 502 ... he is the only Tar Heel ever with at least 1,900 points, 300 (and soon to be 400) assists, 250 three-pointers, and 100 steals.

STOP THE BALL
• Carolina is seventh in the nation in KenPom's defensive efficiency at 93.4 points per 100 possessions. That is UNC's best defensive efficiency since 2020-21 (91.7) and fourth best in the last 10 seasons.
• The Tar Heels limited opponents under 100 in defensive efficiency in 12 of the last 18 games, including the last two wins over Virginia (73.2) and Miami (95.8). The Tar Heels lost three of the six games (Georgia Tech, Clemson and Syracuse) in that stretch where it allowed more than 100 points/100 possessions.
• Carolina is second in the ACC in both field goal and three-point percentage defense.
• Carolina is holding its opponents to 40.6% shooting from the floor, lowest by the opponents since 2014-15 (39.8%).
• Carolina is holding its opponents to 30.7% shooting from three-point range. That is the second-lowest percentage by the opponents in a season and lowest since the opponents made 30.0% in 2014-15.
• ACC opponents are shooting 29.5% from three-point range. Opponents have shot under 30% in 10 of the 17 conference games (UNC 10-0) and better than 40% six times (UNC 4-2 with wins over Florida State twice, Louisville and Miami in Chapel Hill and losses at Georgia Tech and at Syracuse).
• In seven of the 10 games when the opponents shot under 30% from three-point range, Carolina held those teams below 25% – 5.6% at Clemson, 10.0% at NC State, 15.0% by Wake Forest, 17.2% at Pittsburgh, 17.6% at Boston College, 21.1% by Syracuse in Chapel Hill and 14.3% at Virginia.
• The Tar Heels are 15-2 this season (losses to Villanova and Syracuse) when they make more three-pointers.
• Carolina has held the opponents below 40% from the floor in 30 of 56 halves and 13 of 28 games this season.
• Carolina is 11-2 this season and 31-4 under Hubert Davis when it holds the opponents below 40% from the floor, including the win over Miami on Monday.
• Carolina has held ACC opponents under 30% shooting in a half six times.
• Carolina held Pittsburgh, Clemson and NC State under 60 points on their home courts in early January, the first time UNC did that in three straight road wins since 1998-99.
• On the road, UNC has held teams to 37.8% from the floor, including 25.3% from three-point range. Carolina is averaging 7.9 threes, while the home teams are making 5.0 per game.
• UNC has held six teams without a fastbreak point and eight others have scored three or fewer fastbreak points, including three by Virginia.

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Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

RJ Davis

Harrison Ingram

Cormac Ryan

Jae'Lyn Withers

Paxson Wojcik

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University of North Carolina Athletics