Virginia Tech fell to No. 20 North Carolina 66-63 in overtime on Thursday night in Cassell Coliseum.
“I’m really proud of my team this evening,” Hokies head coach Megan Duffy said. “I thought we had a toughness about ourselves and had a great effort. Cassell was rocking. Just a great college basketball atmosphere. Just got to give North Carolina a lot of credit. I thought late in the game, fourth quarter and overtime, they made huge plays. We had a couple different breakdowns, and I felt like they took advantage of everyone late.
“I really believe we had our opportunities. Just didn’t have enough execution down the stretch.”
The Hokies (20-8, 10-6 ACC) led for 30:53 of the 45 minutes but couldn’t hold on in the waning moments. They were just 2-for-12 in overtime and missed their final eight shots. After taking a 63-62 lead on two Carys Baker free throws with 2:48 remaining, they did not score again.
It was reminiscent of last year’s clash in Chapel Hill, where Tech was in front with four minutes left but did not close things out. It was a similar story this time around.
Halfway through the fourth quarter, the Hokies were up 52-48. However, they only scored five points over the final five minutes — all from Samyha Suffren — and could not capitalize after being in control for the previous two quarters.
It was a physical and rugged defensive game that saw UNC shoot 36.8 percent (21-for-57) while Tech made a 33.8 percent clip (22-for-65). The difference was at the foul line, where the Tar Heels were 16-for-19 and the Hokies, while perfect at 13-for-13, had six fewer attempts. (It was an impressive statistic given Carolina did not attempt a free throw at Duke on Sunday.)
Two of those conversions for UNC came at the end of the first half after officials upgraded a foul on Tech’s Mackenzie Nelson to a flagrant 1 upon review. Lanie Grant made both attempts, and instead of heading into the locker room with a nine-point cushion, the Hokies only led 28-21.
Four crucial free throws swung the game in overtime, too. With 1:27 remaining, Tar Heels forward Nyla Harris backed down Baker in the paint, spun and elbowed her in the face with her motion towards the basket. Officials whistled for a foul on Baker and, unlike the play on Nelson, did not go to the monitor for another look at the play.
Instead, Harris headed to the stripe and converted two foul shots to turn what was a one-point Tech lead into a one-point Carolina lead. The Hokies trailed the rest of the way, and two free throws from Grant with 25 ticks left pushed the margin to three.
“They have the opportunity to kind of come together and kind of talk about if they want to review it,” Duffy said. “There are certain things I can review, certain things I can’t. … At least one of them came over to me and said they just felt like it was more of a collision vs. the new F1 where it might not be intentional, but if you really whack somebody, they’ll go to it.
“Unfortunately, Carys got the brunt of it, but I think it was bodies coming together vs. something cheap, and I know it probably didn’t feel good for her, but I guess that’s what they told me, that it wasn’t necessarily something they thought they needed to review.”
Still, Tech had opportunities to respond. After the play with Harris, it missed a jumper from Suffren, and then stole the ball and missed a layup from Carleigh Wenzel. On the other side of Grant’s free throws, Nelson had a three blocked by Nyla Brooks, but she tipped the offensive board to Wenzel. That 3-point attempt was also blocked by Grant, but it went out of bounds with 0.8 seconds on the clock.
The Hokies ran a baseline out-of-bounds play for Baker with one final hope to tie the game, and Kilah Freelon freed her up just enough to uncork a corner three, but it did not fall.
It was a disappointing outcome for the Hokies, given the stakes — it was arguably their most important home game of the Duffy era to date — and how they performed for the majority of the game.
They held the Tar Heels to 21 first-half points, their lowest output of the season, and yielded just five field goals on 23 attempts (21.7%). That included a 1-for-11 clip in the second quarter.
“I thought our defense was really good in the first half,” Baker said, “and I think we just had in the second half some slip-ups in kind of crunch time, so I think that wasn’t very helpful to us.”
Tech was OK offensively, too. It was 7-for-17 (41.2%) in the first quarter before falling to 3-for-11 (27.3%) in the second, but it bounced back with a 5-for-10 third period and led 44-42 after 30 minutes.
Yet, Carolina’s defense provided some fits down the stretch. The Hokies were just 7-for-27 (25.9%) in the final 15 minutes while attacking a defense that was switching across the board.
Tar Heels head coach Courtney Banghart opted to roll with a smaller lineup featuring the likes of Elina Aarnisalo, Indya Nivar, Grant, Nyla Brooks and Harris because of the versatility. That group allowed them to matchup better against Tech, even though it meant 6-foot-4 forward Ciera Toomey — who had eight points and four rebounds — was on the bench.
“They’re hard to guard,” Banghart said. “We went to our switch package, and thank God I have a big that can switch, and she did it really well, which was good.”
It worked just enough. UNC increased its defensive intensity and made the Hokies take tough shots, most of which they missed. They finished just 16-for-43 (37.2%) on 2-point looks, many of which were layup attempts through contact.
“I thought overall, we got … some good looks, missed some layups,” Duffy said. “We executed a couple of really nice things, and as you can see, it was extremely physical on both sides, and I thought we needed to finish a little bit better, whether they were fouls or not. I just thought we had a couple — maybe four or five layups — that needed to go in. Unfortunately, they didn’t.”
Carolina finally got Grant going in the fourth, too, and that helped it turn the tide. A Midlothian native who starred at James River High School, she entered the day as the team’s third-highest scorer at 10.1 points per game and as the ACC’s leading 3-point shooter at 42.7 percent.
Tech kept her in check for the majority of the game, as she started 0-for-4 from the field. Her only points through three quarters were the two free throws before halftime. Then she got in a groove, finally knocking down a floater with 5:13 left in the fourth after getting into the lane and coming to a jump stop.
Grant’s three-point play a few minutes later put the Heels up two, and she gave them the lead again with 2:21 remaining on her lone three of the game. She also had an opportunity at the end of regulation with 5.1 seconds left, but her long three was off the mark.
“She’s an incredible competitor,” Banghart said of Grant. “… She makes big shots, she makes free throws. They were guarding her really tight, which allowed us to use her as a screener to get some one-on-one.”
In the end, the Hokies just needed to execute better in the final stretch. They outscored UNC 24-18 in the paint, 21-8 off the bench and 19-9 off turnovers, but couldn’t buy a bucket in crunch time.
“I think we came out with a tenacity about ourselves on the defensive end,” Duffy said. “… I thought we were pretty connected on our personnel. … Some phenomenal possessions, and then, like we mentioned before, in the second half, I thought we still had some great possessions and then a couple mishaps.
“We didn’t rotate once when we needed to and we were off too far on one of their shooters, and we missed a box out, and those little things added up at the wrong times. I think that was the biggest thing. You can maybe get away with that a little bit earlier in the game and you can adjust, but that’s when you’ve really got to lock in.”
Baker and Suffren were Tech’s leading scorers with 15 points apiece, while Wenzel had 14. Kilah Freelon added six points and 10 boards, too.
Harris led Carolina with 15 points, while Grant finished with 10, and Nivar had 10 points to accompany her four steals.
The Hokies are back in Cassell Coliseum for their final home game of the season on Sunday against Georgia Tech (2 p.m. ET).