UNC Basketball: Tar Heels dismantle banged-up Seminoles

The UNC basketball program put together one of its best performances of the season in a 20-point blowout of the Florida State Seminoles.

The Tar Heels were so good on Saturday that it might not have mattered who they played, but they just so happened to be playing a Florida State Seminoles squad that’s among the most banged up in the nation.

Following a quick 18-0 run by the Tar Heels to begin the game, it was obvious from the get-go that Leonard Hamilton’s rag-tag group was on its way to a sixth consecutive loss. The Tar Heels finished the first half as hot as they started it, going into halftime with a 62-24 lead and three players with double-digit points.

North Carolina cruised to a 94-74 victory after leading much of the second half by 30 or more points. The Tar Heels’ offensive outburst was led by sophomore guard Caleb Love, who scored a game-high 18 points on a 6-for-12 shooting performance in which all of his made buckets came from beyond the three-point line. He was 6-for-8 from long-range and added six assists, three rebounds, two steals and one block for the now 18-7 Tar Heels.

Armando Bacot recorded his 19th double-double of the season with 17 points and 14 rebounds. Picking up right where he left off when he shot 8-for-10 against the Clemson Tigers, Bacot finished with a 7-for-9 mark from the floor against the Seminoles.

R.J. Davis and Brady Manek scored 16 points apiece. The Tar Heels’ fifth starter, Leaky Black, had another solid game with five points, five assists, three rebounds and one steal, while shooting a perfect 2-for-2 from the floor and 1-for-1 at the free throw line. The Tar Heels also got a lot of good run out of their bench on Saturday, as Kerwin Walton, Dontrez Styles and Puff Johnson combined to score 22 points.

The Tar Heels shot an outstanding 55.2 percent (37-for-67) for the game and 42.9 percent (12-for-28) beyond the arc. They assisted on 22 of their 37 field goals and outrebounded the Seminoles 40-34. They’re now 10-4 in Atlantic Coast Conference play and in a second-place tie with Wake Forest.

Florida State, now 13-11 overall and 6-8 in league play, struggled mightily from the start. After going down 18-0 over the game’s first 6:29, they simply couldn’t recover. They eventually pulled to within 20 points, but that was only when the Tar Heels took their foot off the gas and the starters out of the game.

The Seminoles were led by former UNC recruiting target Cam’Ron Fletcher, who came off the bench to lead his team in points (16) and rebounds (10). Matthew Cleveland and RayQuan Evans each scored 13. FSU shot less than 39 percent for the game, but did knock down 47.4 percent (9-for-19) of their attempts from three-point range.

The Tar Heels will be back in action next Wednesday night when they take on the Pittsburgh Panthers at the Dean Smith Center.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for complete coverage of that game and all the latest on the UNC basketball program.