No. 4 Tar Heels beat Boston College 76-66, 8th straight win by double digits
Posted January 20, 2024 7:18 p.m. EST
Updated January 20, 2024 7:20 p.m. EST
BOSTON (AP) — No. 4 North Carolina needed a second-half revival by Harrison Ingram and Armando Bacot to hold off Boston College and extend its streak of double-digit wins to eight in a row.
RJ Davis scored 16 points and Ingram scored 11 with 13 rebounds to lead the Tar Heels to a 76-66 victory over BC on Saturday. Bacot had all 10 of his points in the second half, adding nine rebounds for the game, and Ingram scored nine after the break to help Carolina (15-3, 7-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) pull away late.
“At the end of the day you need your dudes to step up. You need your big-time players to make plays,” North Carolina coach Hubert Davis said. “We need those guys to play well. In the second half, they stepped up and helped us win another road game.”
Although BC (11-7, 2-5) was within five points with three minutes to play, the only suspense down the stretch was whether Carolina would win by 10 or more. Up by eight in the final minute, Davis missed a jumper, Jae’lyn Withers got the offensive rebound and Cormac Ryan sank two free throws with 38 seconds left to make 76-66.
In all, Carolina was 21 of 26 from the line, and 14 of 15 in the second half.
“It’s a huge part of our game,” Davis said. “We always say that we want to dominate points in the paint in three areas: post, penetration and offensive rebounds. That gives you an opportunity to get fouled and get to the free throw line.”
The Tar Heels trailed for much of the first and held just a 68-63 lead with three minutes to play, thrilling the Conte Forum crowd that was the Eagles’ first sellout of the season. But BC didn’t make another basket, losing for the third time in four games.
“In order for your program to rise, you’ve got to get some people interested. They were fired up,” BC coach Earl Grant said. “But we’ve got to play a little it better to win a game like that.”
Quinten Post scored 19 with 10 rebounds for Boston College, which was 3 for 17 from 3-point range and lost to Carolina for the 17th time in 18 tries.
BC jumped to an early lead, had a six-point advantage midway through the first half and still led by one, 31-30, in the final minute before the break. But Carolina made the last two buckets of the half, a turnaround jumper by Ingram to take the lead and then an alley oop to James Okonkwo just before the buzzer that made it 34-31.
The Tar Heels opened the second with Davis’ 3-pointer and a 3-point play by Bacot to open a nine-point lead.
“We all play in the same league, I know they were good — they’ve been good forever. But they’re in the ACC,” said Grant, whose Eagles lost to a ranked team for the second time in eight days. “In this league, you don’t really get caught up in who it is. It’s the next game in the schedule, you prepare for them accordingly.”
UP NEXT
North Carolina: Hosts Wake Forest on Monday.
Boston College: At Virginia Tech on Tuesday night.
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AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball
