His first try was too low, an errant alley-oop attempt that nearly sent forward Isaiah Hicks out of bounds to retrieve the loose ball. But the senior’s return volley was too high, forcing Pinson into the air and over a Miami defender.
Twenty feet away, 6-foot-11 Tony Bradley stood under the basket, eyes locked on Pinson. The North Carolina bench saw it, too. If Hicks couldn’t corral one, surely Bradley could.
“With those two, I know I can throw it up at any point and they’re gonna go get it,” Pinson said.
So the moment his feet touched the floor, Pinson hurtled the ball straight toward the hoop. Too straight. The ball stopped short of Bradley’s outstretched arms and swished through the nylon.
“Nobody else could do it except Theo,” head coach Roy Williams said.
Three points later, No. 6 UNC held its largest lead yet with just over eight minutes to go in its 78-53 win over Miami in Thursday’s ACC Tournament semifinal. As the Barclays Center erupted with laughter and applause, the junior wing stood with his hands at his side.
It was that kind of night for top-seeded UNC (27-6, 14-4 ACC), whose 21 assists picked apart the zone defense the ninth-seeded Hurricanes (21-11, 10-8 ACC) employed.
It worked in January, when North Carolina couldn’t crack the Miami zone in a 77-62 loss. But that team was without Pinson, who suffered his second injury of the season two days before the game against Virginia Tech.
