Kentucky's defense shuts down Paige and UNC offense

LEXINGTON, Ky. — It’s worked so many times before: in an overtime showdown with T.J. Warren and N.C. State, in a raucous Smith Center rivalry eight days after Duke was scheduled to come to Chapel Hill but didn’t because of snow.

“Second-half Marcus” as junior point guard Marcus Paige is called, has been the No. 21 Tar Heels’ go-to game-changer in times of desperation or need ever since he proved he could do it midway through his sophomore campaign.

But on Saturday, exactly 364 days after his 21 second-half points led the Tar Heels past Kentucky in 2013, the top-ranked Wildcats, known for their offense, had an answer for Paige and UNC in a 84-70 victory:

Defense.

Paige wouldn't hold the Wildcats' fate in his hands. Not this time.

“Their defense was just so much stronger,” Coach Roy Williams said. “Three times — no four times today — he went up in the air to shoot the ball and their defense was so good he had to pass it.”

That smothering Kentucky pressure kept the ball out of Paige’s hands more than usual in the first half and the junior point guard got just four shots off by the break for the first two of his afternoon's 14 points.

The more Kentucky pressured, the less frequently Paige saw the ball, and consequentially, the Tar Heels were left having to improvise on the offensive end without their leader through the first 30 minutes.

“We don’t screen and move enough in the first half or in the first part of the game, and that’s why we take bad shots and have turnovers,” Paige said. “When we settle down and run our stuff, then the guys that we want to have the ball are touching the ball, we’re getting the ball inside and also we’re creating opportunities for me.

“We’ve just got to run our offense better because you can’t do it against a team like that 1-on-1.”

After allowing the Tar Heels to shoot 53.6 percent from the field in the first half, Kentucky clamped down to hold UNC to 37.5 in the second half despite Paige’s attempt to take over as he’s done so many times before.

Paige went 3-for-3, all 3-pointers, on his first shot attempts to open the second half and, with more than eight minutes remaining on the clock, he'd cut Kentucky’s 19-point lead nearly in half to 10.

But as Paige heated up, his teammates cooled off, leaving “Second-half Marcus" to carry the impossibly heavy load alone.

"He did get a couple of looks and he made a couple of tough ones," Williams said. "We need him to shoot the ball like that, but we need some other guys to step up and make shots, also."

That wasn't the case.

After junior forward Brice Johnson scored 12 points in the first half, Kentucky held him to three in the second half, while Paige attempted to fight the battle virtually alone.

Sophomore forward Kennedy Meeks, who chipped in 10 points and four rebounds, admitted that despite UNC's newfound depth this year, the Tar Heels might still be relying on Paige too often to be the changing force. After all, it's worked before.

"I guess so a little bit," Meeks said. "He's one of the best players in the country. Not much you can say about that."

But on Saturday, the Wildcats did have something to say. Their defense did that talking.