Tar Heels sink Buccaneers 100-49

Peter Koutroumpis, Triangle Sports Network
Peter Koutroumpis, Triangle Sports Network

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Even after taking 10 days off for exams, the 15th-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels showed a lot of energy in handing the visiting Charleston Southern Buccaneers an overwhelming 100-49 loss at Carmichael Arena on Saturday.

Though they needed time to shake off some rust, missing easy shots and layups early on, the Tar Heels finished the game with not only five players tallying double-figure totals to go along with a 58-percent shooting performance from the field, but all 12 players on the roster got playing time and contributed to the final score.

Forward Stephanie Mavunga’s double-double performance (14 points, 11 rebounds) played a significant role in North Carolina not leaving anything to chance at either end of the court against a Charleston Southern team that has never beaten them.

Forward Xylina McDaniel got the Tar Heels started by successfully dropping the game’s two first shots, a three and a turnaround baseline jumper that quickly boosted the score to 5-0 and established her game-high 15-point performance to go along with four rebounds and four blocks.

“I thought defensively, Xylina McDaniel was outstanding,” North Carolina associate head coach Andrew Calder said.

“I thought she really disrupted their offense at the top of the key a lot of times when they were trying to reverse the ball. Even if she didn’t get the steal, she made them move further out in their offense. She did a really good job with that.”

The Tar Heels extended their lead to 9-0 and forced Buccaneers head coach Fred Applin, a former Tar Heels assistant, to call a timeout to calm his team down just three minutes into the game.

Even while the Buccaneers managed to get their first basket, a three-pointer, from Raleigh-area and Ravenscroft product Erin Bratcher (14 points, 3 rebounds), the Tar Heels maintained their dominance in forcing turnovers and scoring to extend the margin to 21 points, leading 24-3 with 11:54 to play in the opening half.

The game was more or less over at that time, or so it seemed.

The Buccaneers didn’t wear down that quickly and went on a 10-0 run led by Bratcher and DJ Fowler (12 points, 2 rebounds) who both took advantage of some undisciplined defensive play on the Tar Heels’ part that resulted in costly transition opportunities and fouls.

Leading 29-16 at the under-eight media timeout, the Tar Heels regained their composure and brought in defensive and transition specialists Latifah Coleman, Danielle Butts and Brittany Rountree to stabilize the flow of the game for them.

“They bring defensive intensity off the bench,” Calder said of the three upperclassmen.

“All three are elite defenders. Latifah can get after you. Danielle can get after you. Brittany can not only get after you, but she’s one of the top five players we’ve ever had in off-the-ball defense – a great defender. Those players are elite defenders and they bring such intensity on the perimeter. When you’ve got pressure up there (top), that makes the players behind them able to put more pressure to catch the ball. Those three do that. They bring great spark to us.”

By the half, North Carolina had pushed its lead back up to 19 points, 49-30, and continued to pile it on for the rest of the game.

The Tar Heels kept their momentum going and shot even better during the final 20 minutes of play, finishing with a 61-percent shooting performance while extending their lead up to 51 points with 1:27 to play.

A large catalyst for scoring points during the final half was guard N’Dea Bryant who finished with a career-high 14 points to go along with four rebounds and four steals.

Averaging only 2.4 points this season coming into the game, Bryant credited her teammates with finding her in the right spots and at the right times.

“My teammates know my game and where to give me the ball,” Bryant said.

“It’s nothing different than we do any other game, it was just today they were finding me more and I had more openings, so I just had better shots and more shots (to score).”

Charleston Southern never showed any sign of giving up as they continued to score baskets, but they were were eventually outrun and worn down by the Tar Heels.

North Carolina forced turnovers on consecutive possessions on numerous occasitions that resulted in easy baskets including a layup from Hillary Fuller who dropped the century-mark layup for the Tar Heels to end the game’s scoring.

Even as another dominating performance at home  padded their statistics and kept morale high with an overall 8-2 record heading into the latter stages of its non-conference schedule, Calder still wants to see improvement in two areas for this young and dyamic team.

“I would like to be better in communication right now at this time,” Calder started off.

“I would like to be a better rebounding team than we are. We won the boards, but we gave up 38 percent of their offense – they got 38 percent of their offensive misses – rebound chances. That’s gotta’ be below 30. And we only got 34 percent of our misses, and we need that to be 40 and above…Communication and rebounding has got to get better and be a little better on offense with our ball movement. Sometimes the ball gets stagnated a little bit. We gotta’ do a little better with that.”