For a moment, it appeared North Carolina was going to blow a big lead at Florida State for a second straight year.
It was only a moment.
“It wasn’t pretty, but we’ll take it anyway,” North Carolina coach Roy Williams said after the second-ranked Tar Heels finished fast Sunday for an 81-60 victory.
“In the second half we were more of that team that can fight you and win,” said Williams, who said he was upset with his club after allowing Florida State to score the final nine points of the first half to pull within 38-29.
“I was very disappointed in their aggressiveness,” Williams said. “I told them Florida State was more aggressive the last five minutes of that first half and that’s what happened last year.”
That was when North Carolina (19-2, 8-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) built a 24-point first-half lead and wound up losing 90-81 in overtime. Williams said that game was still bothering him on the trip to Florida on Saturday.
The Seminoles (11-11, 3-6) were down by 18 points in the first half Sunday and closed to 49-48 on Diego Romero’s three-pointer with 14 minutes 16 seconds left. That was the Seminoles’ fourth straight three in a span of just two minutes.
Rashad McCants’ dunk 20 seconds after Romero’s basket ignited a 25-6 run down the stretch.
McCants, who led all scorers with 16 points, dunked a pass from Raymond Felton and within nine minutes, the Tar Heels were up 74-54 as Florida State went scoreless for more than seven minutes.
North Carolina had Florida State’s Von Wafer clamped down for most of the game. The Seminoles’ leading scorer had 14 points on 5-of 12 shooting.
SUNDAY’S GAMES
RESULTS, SYNOPSIS
Northern Illinois 57 at Kent State 67
Kevin Warzynski had 16 points and Golden Flashes (15-7, 7-4 MAC) got off to 11-3 lead in beating Huskies (8-12, 4-8), who got 12 each from Mike McKinney and Paige Paulsen.
