As woefully as her team shot from behind the 3-point arc in its two opening tilts of the season, Brittany Rountree said the confidence within North Carolina’s locker room did not waver.
“I have good coaches and good teammates encouraging me to keep shooting, and we just keep looking for each other,” the sophomore guard said.
The Tar Heels’ drought from beyond the arc ended in a deluge during Wednesday night’s 63-48 win against Georgetown. The Tar Heels drained 10 3-pointers — nine more than their previous two games combined.
Rountree paced the Tar Heels’ 3-point barrage by burying six triples, while Megan Buckland provided a welcome spark off the bench by sinking three of six shots from long range.
Buckland, a redshirt freshman shooting guard, recently distinguished herself in practice and shows signs of becoming a worthy 3-point complement to Rountree.
“She was a great shooter in high school,” Sylvia Hatchell said. “She’s worked really hard, and in the last, probably week or 10 days in practice, she’s been knocking them down.”
UNC hoisted 28 attempts from the arc against the Hoyas, deploying a perimeter-centric attack to offset Georgetown’s stifling defense.
The Hoyas collapsed in the paint, erecting a barricade to the lane while allowing open looks to the Tar Heels, who happily obliged by sinking most of their uncontested shots.
“You make ‘em, we take ‘em,” Hatchell said. “And they had to spread out because (Georgetown was) really packing it back in.”