Tar Heels shut down Green, sink Hokies in overtime

Erick Green wanted the ball. He got the ball. But he didn’t score.

The North Carolina basketball team shut down the nation’s leading scorer in crunch time and came back to beat Virginia Tech 72-60 in overtime on Saturday.

Forward James Michael McAdoo led the Tar Heels with 22 points on 8-of-12 shooting and 10 rebounds and kept UNC (15-6, 5-3 ACC) in the game during the second half. Then point guard Marcus Paige took over during overtime.

Paige, who had been severely struggling shooting recently, finished with 19 points, eight of which came during the extra period.

“This was a game where if I was open, I had to step up and knock down some shots,” Paige said.

Green, who was averaging 25 points per game for the Hokies (11-10, 2-6 ACC), was held to 16 points on 7-of-21 shooting by a combination of Tar Heel defenders led by Dexter Strickland. But most importantly, UNC kept Green scoreless down the stretch.

For almost 20 straight minutes — from the 16:15 mark of the second half until there was just 1:30 remaining in overtime — Green did not score.

And Green airballed his biggest shot of the game, a contested jumper with about four seconds left in regulation and the game tied at 55. Reggie Bullock, who was guarding Green on the possession, forced Green into a difficult shot.

“My assistant coach, Coach C.B. (McGrath) said ‘Do you want to guard him?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I got him,’” Bullock said. “He’s tough to guard … He don’t care if you’re right there in his face, he’s still gonna shoot it.”

With Green effectively shut down, UNC overcame P.J. Hairston’s absence due to a concussion and poor shooting performances by Bullock and Leslie McDonald, turning a big first-half deficit into a comeback win.

Virginia Tech jumped out to a 12-0 lead, forcing coach Roy Williams to call a rare early timeout. The Tar Heels did fight their way back into the game, but they couldn’t tie or take the lead despite several opportunities. Virginia Tech hit a 3-pointer in the closing seconds to take a six-point, 32-26 lead into the locker room.

But in the second half, McAdoo helped force the game to overtime. And once it got there, Paige did the rest.

McAdoo spearheaded the UNC comeback, hitting several free throw-line jumpers and pulling down some big rebounds.

“He carried us for a long stretch there,” Williams said.

Overtime, though, belonged to Paige.

Paige hit two huge baskets and a free throw that pushed the UNC lead from 59-58 to 65-58 with 1:36 left in overtime. He also chipped in two assists and did an excellent job breaking Virginia Tech’s full-court press late.

Some of the other Tar Heels didn’t do so much. Bullock and McDonald — who returned after missing the previous three games for academic reasons — shot a combined 4-for-20 and went 1-for-13 from behind the arc.

But UNC still avoided a loss that would have substantially hurt its NCAA Tournament chances because McAdoo and Paige stepped up.

And because Erick Green didn’t.