UNC Basketball: Tar Heels hold off Stanford to advance to Maui Invitational Finals

In a very sloppy contest, the UNC basketball program improves to 3-0 on the season with a victory over Stanford.

The Tar Heels are heading to the Maui Invitational Finals.

In the Monday night semifinals, North Carolina defeated Stanford 67-63. It was a sloppy game throughout, but the Tar Heels were able to come away with the victory. The Tar Heels faced a four-point deficit heading into the second half, but battled back with another strong second half performance to pull out the victory.

Overall, the game was a back-and-forth battle between Williams’ Tar Heels and the Cardinal, who are coached by former UNC assistant Jerod Haase. This game featured eight separate lead changes, and also saw 10 different occasions where the game was tied. Simply put, both teams battled hard, but the Tar Heels came out on top.

In regards to the Tar Heels, a few key things stood out in regards to their overall performance. For starters, turnovers were a huge problem for the Tar Heels. As a team, North Carolina turned the ball over 24 times, something that we’re sure Roy Williams definitely isn’t happy about.

Additionally, the Tar Heels faced foul trouble throughout the entire contest. Williams’ team was charged with 22 total fouls — 11 in each half — as the Tar Heels had to mix and match throughout to ensure that they kept their key players available.

Along with turnover issues and foul trouble, the team also struggled at the free-throw line. As a unit, the Tar Heels shot 63% from the free throw line (15-24), and a few key misses could’ve really came back to haunt them.  And for the third straight contest, a freshman led the team in scoring, as Caleb Love paced the offense with 16 points.

Speaking of Love, the freshman point guard got off to a rough start. Having missed nine of his 11 first half shots, Love bounced back in the second half, connecting on four of his seven shot attempts, including back-to-back three-point field goals.

Overall, the Tar Heels had five players score in double-figures, including R.J. Davis’ 11, while Leaky Black, Armando Bacot and Garrison Brooks tallied 10 points each in the victory.

After a hard-fought victory, the Tar Heels will have another quick turnaround, as they will challenge the No. 17 Texas Longhorns on Wednesday afternoon in the Maui Invitational finals. Tip-off for the contest is scheduled for 4:00 PM EST.

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