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The Daily Tar Heel

Barnes’ game-winner sinks Seminoles

Barnes’ game-winner sinks Seminoles

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — After the game, Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton could only chuckle.

He sat in the post-game press conference with a slight grin to the right side of his face and his left arm slung over the back of the chair beside him.

Hamilton knew Harrison Barnes was going to get the ball with the clock winding down, but there was nothing else his team could have done to prevent him from knocking down the game-winning 3-pointer for North Carolina, sealing the 72-70 win with 3.1 seconds left.

“I just think that was a great play,” Hamilton said. “Obviously you want to try to contest it as well as possible, and I thought Michael (Snaer) did a really good job of contesting it. He made a tough shot. You got to say that was as good as it gets.”

Down one, point guard Kendall Marshall ran down the court and put up a weak layup that Okaro White turned the other way. Marshall received the ensuing in-bounds pass and flipped it to Barnes, who made a rounded turn before making it to the middle of the court.

His eyes oscillated from the clock to his defender before he made his move. Barnes elevated over Snaer and drained the long-range game-winner.

“I didn’t know what they were going to throw at me, I thought they might throw a double team, but when I saw the way they were lined up, I knew I had to take the jump shot,” said Barnes, who finished with 18 points.

But before Barnes continued his late-game heroics, the top-performance award almost went to Derwin Kitchen. Kitchen, the only senior in the Seminoles’ starting lineup for his last game at home, hit two free throws with 18.2 seconds remaining to give FSU (20-9, 10-5 ACC) its first lead of the game since the 15-minute mark of the second half.

Until that point, the game had been one of the most even contests UNC (23-6, 13-2) has played all year.

Both teams went 16-for-31 from the field in the first half, with UNC grabbing two more rebounds than the Seminoles but also coughing up one more turnover.

John Henson, Tyler Zeller and Barnes combined for 28 of UNC’s 37 first-half points while just five points came from the bench. UNC coach Roy Williams used only an eight-man rotation after Reggie Bullock found out Tuesday he’d be out for the year with a knee injury.

Leslie McDonald kick-started UNC’s offense early in the second half, draining back-to-back 3-balls as the Tar Heels led 49-44 before Hamilton called a timeout.

“The first one felt good when it went in, and Kendall told me to go down to the baseline and he’d get me another one, and I felt good,” McDonald said. “And as soon as he did it, I knew it was going in.”

Florida State tightened the game with the help of Tar Heel foul trouble. Dexter Strickland had three fouls, while Zeller finished the night with four. FSU used reserve Jon Kreft to be physical with the 7-footer to push a depleted UNC team into committing fouls.

“It’s one of those things that they’re big bodies and they know they can usually push me around so it’s something I’m used to,” Zeller said. “You go from not even close to foul trouble to foul trouble so you have to be a lot more careful.”

Only Duke stands in the Tar Heels’ way of an outright ACC regular-season championship. And should it come down to the wire, Henson knows the ball will be in Barnes’ hands.

“I see him do it every day,” Henson said. “I had more confidence than you’ll ever know in him. There was no doubt.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.

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