UNC Basketball: Tar Heels blow past Tulane in Chapel Hill

UNC cruises past Tulane Sunday afternoon in Chapel Hill

The North Carolina Tar Heels non-conference schedule has been packed the last week or so, giving them hardly any rest.

After losing to Michigan State in the PK80 Tournament finale on Nov. 26, the Tar Heels have now won three-straight in the matter of a week.

The latest came at the Dean E. Smith Center on Sunday afternoon beating Tulane 97-73 to improve to 8-1 on the season and 4-0 at home.

UNC jumped all over the Green Wave from the start, grabbing an 11-2 lead and never looking back.

The Tar Heels then went on a 19-6 run to extend their lead to 30-8 with just under 10 minutes to go in the half. They kept pouring it on and took a 52-29 lead into halftime.

The second half was similar to the first as UNC grabbed control.

Tulane actually went on an 8-0 run in the second half to make a small dent in UNC’s lead but the Tar Heels responded back with a 12-0 run of their own.

UNC was led by another dominant performance by Luke Maye who finished the game with 22 points and 10 rebounds.

The performance gave him five double-doubles on the year and marked the seventh time he scored at least 20 points in a game to start the year.

Fellow junior Kenny Williams also continued his impressive play.

Williams finished the game with 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting from the floor. He made 2-of-3 attempts from the three-point line which has been a positive in his game this season. Williams has really improved his shooting from behind the arc.

Senior point guard Joel Berry also added 13 points in the win.

Player of the game

Luke Maye. Another easy decision for us. The junior continues his hot play this season and has really improved since walking-on to UNC just two years ago.

Maye continues to be a double-double machine and dominated on Sunday. He shot 8-of-12 from the field and made 6 of his 9 free throw attempts.

His awesome story continues as he’s paved the way for the Tar Heels early success this season.

Hopefully he can keep this up.

Notable stat

The Tar Heels shot 65.5 percent for the game on Sunday. The performance comes just a week after they shot a program-worst 24.6 percent in the loss to Michigan.

UNC started off the game hot from the field and it continued throughout.

What’s next?

UNC continues it’s long stretch of games on Wednesday. The Tar Heels will host Western Carolina at the Dean Dome on December 6th.

After that they will have 11 days off before a big road game at Tennessee on Dec. 17.