North Carolina's early fight wasn't enough on Thursday night, as Courtney Banghart and the UNC women's basketball program suffered a loss to No. 2-ranked Texas in the ACC/SEC Challenge.
The Tar Heels came out of the gate strong, having their way in the paint. North Carolina held a 21-16 advantage after one quarter of play, as the Longhorns had no answer for the Tar Heels' early aggressiveness.
Unfortunately, that offensive success diminished significantly over the final three quarters, as the Tar Heels were held to just 43 points over the final 30 minutes.
Texas is an elite-caliber program, even with the vast amount of injuries they are currently working through. Playing against them in their home gym isn't an easy task, to say the least, but North Carolina never backed down from the challenge.
The Longhorns do a great job of getting their opponents in foul trouble. They accomplished that goal on Thursday night, forcing North Carolina to commit 19 fouls. On the defensive end, Texas finds ways to force its opponents into mistakes, something it did extremely well against the Tar Heels.
Regardless of who your opponent is, you won't win many games when you turn the ball over 20 times.
It also didn't help that the UNC women's basketball program struggled from beyond-the-arc, knocking down just two of their 11 attempts from three-point land. That was an area that the Tar Heels could've had an advantage over the Longhorns, but couldn't knock the shots down.
Indya Nivar, who was hampered by foul trouble, had another strong outing, scoring a team-high 17 points to go along with four rebounds and three assists. Elina Aarnisalo connected on six of her seven shots from the floor en route to a 16-point performance, while Ciera Toomey rounded out the double-digit scorers with her 10 points.
These are the games the UNC women's basketball program not only wants to be in, but aims to win. Unfortunately, they weren't able to secure that highly-desired victory, but the good news is, they will return home on Sunday to host Boston U before having a week off to prepare for their ACC opener against No. 22-ranked Louisville.