North Carolina At Chapel Hill

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The No. 16 North Carolina women’s basketball team (2-0) staved off a potential upset by Davidson (2-1) with a 74-70 win on Sunday night.

Written by Twumasi Duah-Mensah | The Daily Tar Heel

The Tar Heels rolled with the same starting lineup as in their 102-49 rout of Gardner-Webb: senior guard Deja Kelly, first-year guard Reniya Kelly, junior forward Maria Gakdeng, senior forward Alyssa Ustby and graduate guard Lexi Donarski.

But it was a small-ball lineup head coach Courtney Banghart tried out later which would result in UNC’s best stretch of the play in the first quarter. Gakdeng came out for sophomore guard Indya Nivar, leaving only one Tar Heel, Ustby, who taller than six feet.

The Tar Heels double-teamed Davidson whenever it entered the post to prevent mismatches, while its ball pressure forced five Davidson turnovers in the first period. The only field goal Davidson scored in the four minutes was a turnaround hook by Wildcat Millie Prior posted up against Deja Kelly.

“In terms of what I like about that lineup, I can learn to like it,” Banghart said. “I liked it a lot last year, but I’d like to practice it if we’re going to play it.”

Trotting out this lineup was not her plan. Banghart said the team found out the day of the game that senior forward Anya Poole would not play due to a lower-body injury.

That forced Nivar, a guard, to play at the bottom of UNC’s 3-2 matchup zone, which Banghart said she had never done before.

Despite her inexperience, Nivar was key to the lineup’s early success and continued her disruption in the second quarter. Forced to play bigger than her 5-foot-10 frame, she led her team in stripping the Wildcats of the ball on their drives and post-ups.

At the end of the second quarter, UNC deployed its zone again. Double-teaming any Wildcat who had the ball, the pressure forced a pass that hung in the air long enough for Nivar to catch with two hands and spark a fast break.

Such a play typified how UNC held Davidson to 26 points on 30 percent shooting in the first half. But five seconds after, Donarski tried corralling a zipped pass and stepped out of bounds. Despite building a 34-26 halftime lead, UNC had yet to build enough offensive momentum to pull away.

Davidson refused to go away. Deja picked off an ill-advised pass and finished the fast break layup to put UNC up 11, their biggest lead of the game to that point.

But the Wildcats would profit off two straight UNC turnovers — a Reniya pass which Deja did not expect and an illegal Gakdeng screen — and two missed shots to make two straight left-wing threes and bring the lead down to five.

UNC would once again build its biggest lead of the game, this time to 13, and enter the fourth quarter up 58-49. But the Wildcats would chip away at the lead again and surprise the Tar Heels in the fourth quarter.

Down 62-56, an 8-0 run which took advantage of the Tar Heels allowing the Wildcats open threes in favor of sending help defense to the post culminated in an open three for Davidson’s Charlise Dunn to give Davidson its first lead of the game at 64-62.

“It’s just hard when they have so many three-point threats,” Donarski said. “They get us in the ball screens and stuff, and we had a couple of communication issues that [are] all on us. It’s stuff that we talked about before the game, and we just didn’t execute like we had said that we were going to.”

The Wildcats ended the game having made 10 threes from 28 shots.

“Usually if a team makes 10 threes, you don’t win that game,” Banghart said.

Yet North Carolina would find a way to come out victorious.

After a back-and-forth, an open Donarski catch-and-shoot three from the left wing put UNC up 70-66. Donarski’s three treys were the most of any Tar Heel.

“I’m just reacting to whatever my teammates create,” Donarski said. “The three that I hit at the end was all because of Deja [Kelly]. She drew all the attention of three bodies and then basically had the choice of two other people that were open to pass it to.”

But a few plays later, while defending the post Gakdeng allowed Prior to slip under her. An overhead pass found Prior, who finished through a Gakdeng foul and converted the resulting free throw to make it 70-69.

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With under 15 seconds remaining, Gakdeng and Donarski each knocked down free throws in the clutch to put the game away, 74-70.

Despite shooting a career 55.5 percent from the free throw line and stepping up after Donarski and Deja each missed pairs of free throws before her, the moment didn’t faze Gakdeng. She said she practices on the same hoop where she made her key free throws.

“I just kind of imagined [being] by myself making those free throws, so it just came naturally to me,” Gakdeng said.

https://www.dailytarheel.com/staff/twumasi-duah-mensah

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