UNC sweeps series against NC State

RALEIGH — With the likes of Tyler Zeller and John Henson, the North Carolina basketball team usually destroys teams in the paint.

But on Tuesday night in the RBC Center, the Wolfpack outscored UNC by 20 points inside the lane.

The Tar Heels, instead, capitalized on a largely untapped reserve of outside shooting skill to keep the Wolfpack at bay and pulled away at N.C. State for an 86-74 win.

“It’s a fantastic win for us,” coach Roy Williams said. “I thought we shot the ball the best we have shot it all year long.”

UNC hit seven shots from the outside in the first half and tacked on three more in the second to shoot 10-of-19 for the game.

Zeller, the seven-foot senior, had more blocks, three, than he did points, two, in the first half while the Tar Heels shot a blistering 50 percent from deep. At the break, Williams wanted to see his team work it inside to its workhorse.

“(Williams) told me I had to work a little harder to get the ball, but at the same time the guards needed to do a better job getting it to me,” Zeller said. “Even when I did (get the ball) they doubled down and passing it out when the guards are shooting like that — it makes it pretty easy.”

N.C. State beat the Tar Heels in the paint, where very few opponents have been able to find success. The Wolfpack had a 42-22 advantage inside, but it couldn’t quite keep pace with the Tar Heels.

“We’re very versatile,” Zeller said. “When we’re hitting threes like that, it takes a lot of the load off the big guys …. They did a good job of getting to the paint and that’s something that we’ll have to work on, but our guards did a fantastic job of knocking down shots.”

Tuesday night’s game marked the first time this season that all five UNC starters scored in double-digits.

N.C. State put together an 11-0 run to tie the game at 30 with less than eight minutes to play in the first half, but UNC followed that with a 6-0 spurt capped by a John Henson free throw to lead 37-31.
UNC never surrendered the lead again.

N.C. State’s C.J. Leslie led all scorers with 24 points, a career high, and 12 rebounds.

But the Wolfpack’s second-leading scorer on the season was shut down by the Tar Heels for the second time this year. Sharpshooter Scott Wood finished the game with just three points due in large part to Reggie Bullock and the way he stayed in Wood’s shadow the whole game around the 3-point arc.

“It was basically a defensive game for me,” Bullock said. “My teammates helped me out a lot, but that was one of my main goals — just to play good defense in the game … I knew my teammates were going to back me up when I was shadowing him on the baseline.”

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