The Pit was inundated with Carolina blue on Monday.
The fifth-seeded North Carolina women’s basketball defeated fourth-seeded Kentucky 86-74 in the second round of the women’s NCAA tournament. The Tar Heels’ victory earned them a Saturday date with top-seeded Stanford in the Sweet 16.
UNC head coach Sylvia Hatchell said the second-round game was a chess match between her and Kentucky head coach Matthew Mitchell.
“We had a lot of people contributing, and that’s what it takes to be a championship team,” she said.
What it also took was a heavy dose of Tar Heels’ guard Italee Lucas. The Wildcats had no answer for Lucas in the first half. At intermission, she led all scorers with 11 points and finished with a team-high 22 points, in addition to her seven rebounds and five assists.
Lucas sealed Kentucky’s fate with her second 3-pointer of the contest, hitting an open trey from the corner that put UNC up 76-70 with 1:40 left.
Lucas said she told the rest of the team to stay aggressive in the final minutes.
“We just kept pushing,” she said. “You might think you’re tired, but you can’t be this time of the season when you have crucial games like this.”
North Carolina was up as much as 15 with 15:06 left in the game, but Kentucky whittled the lead, and with 7:36 to go, the Wildcats’ Keyla Snowden hit a 3-pointer that cut the Tar Heels’ lead to 63-60.
It didn’t get any easier for the Tar Heels, and closing out the Wildcats was a task.
After a pair of UNC free throws, Kentucky’s Jennifer O’Neill hit a 3-pointer that cut the Heels’ lead to 67-65 with 6:22 left.
Kentucky, however, couldn’t overcome even the smallest deficit, and UNC went on a 19-9 in the final five minutes.
The Wildcats were led by senior forward Victoria Dunlap. Dunlap, who was voted the Southeastern Conference’s women’s Player of the Year, finished with a game-high 23 points.
Although she and the Wildcats won’t move on in the tourney, Dunlap capped a terrific college career.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
She is second all-time at Kentucky in seven statistical categories including points (1,846) rebounds (1,101) blocks (178), free throws attempted (714), free throws made (445) and double-doubles (31).
Dunlap said the Wildcats didn’t play the same type of basketball they had all season.
“It was just a matter of us not coming into the game and playing the way we needed to play the game,” she said. “It started from the beginning because we got up a couple of times and got down a couple of times.”
UNC beat up Kentucky under the basket, holding a 55-31 advantage on the glass.
North Carolina’s Jessica Breland and Krista Gross dominated the boards. They both finished with double-doubles and combined for 20 rebounds.
Breland said the second-chance points were big for the Tar Heels.
“It all started with the rebounding,” she said. “Once we got the rebounds, we have great passers, Tierra (Ruffin-Prant) is probably the best one on the team who could just get the rebound and look straight ahead. I was able to find Italee out on the break, and I think Kentucky — they rebound really well — I guess it was kind of a surprise when we got the boards.”
Mitchell said the game was spirited between the schools, but he was disappointed in his team’s effort.
“I’m really upset about this game,” he said. “My job as a coach is to try to motivate and inspire the players. We did not play inspired basketball in this tournament, and I take a lot of the blame for that.”
