Coleman leads UNC to ACC final with career performance

GREENSBORO — Trailing by 14 at halftime, the third-seeded North Carolina women’s basketball team needed a jolt to beat No. 2
Maryland.

And out of the blue — “shipped in from Mars” if you’d ask coach Sylvia Hatchell — came Latifah Coleman, scoring all of her career-high 17 points in the second half to beat Maryland 72-65.

The win represented the second largest comeback in ACC Women’s Basketball Championship history.

Coleman played just two minutes against Boston College in the quarterfinals — the fewest she’s played in a game this season — and played only seven minutes in the first half.

She entered the game with 11:52 remaining and the Tar Heels trailing 44-42 and missed just 16 seconds after that, shooting five-for-six from the field and making six of eight free-throw attempts.

Senior point guard Tierra Ruffin-Pratt, who led UNC with 20 points, said Coleman has provided leadership on the team’s second group during practice.

“She knocks down those (shots) all the time in practice,” Ruffin-Pratt said. “It’s something we see often, but she just showed y’all a glimpse of what she can really do.”

Coleman hit a 3-pointer with 6 minutes left to tie the game at 52. UNC had not been tied with the Terrapins at that point since the teams were even at five points.

UNC grew its lead to as many as four points, before Maryland sharpshooter Katie Rutan tied the game at 60 on a 3-pointer with 2:46 remaining.

Again Coleman would answer, hitting a jumper just 20 seconds later, giving the Tar Heels a two-point lead they would never relinquish in the game’s final two minutes.

Maryland’s Alyssa Thomas, the ACC Player of the Year, made one of two free throws to bring the Terrapins within one, but there was Coleman with a long jumper to give the Tar Heels a three-point lead.

In the final minute, the 62.5 percent free-throw shooter made three of her four attempts, icing a game that once looked like an imminent win for the Terps, who held a 38-24 halftime lead and had beaten UNC 85-59 in College Park, Md., earlier this season.

Coleman nearly didn’t play in the ACC semifinals after tweaking her right quad on her “good leg,” the leg that had not suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament last season.

She didn’t expect the Tar Heels ACC tournament fate to fall in her hands, but she wasn’t afraid to answer the call.

“Coach just told me to be a leader,” Coleman said. “I hit that first three and didn’t stop from there.”