North Carolina blows 25-point lead, hangs on to stun No. 1 seed Baylor
It was a comeback for the ages and just as impressive as a response.
North Carolina took a haymaker, went down, but got up off the mat. After blowing a 25-point lead in the final 10 minutes of regulation that included the ejection of forward Brady Manek, Hubert Davis’ Tar Heels responded in overtime, knocking off top-seeded Baylor, 93-86, in an East Region second-round game.
The No. 8 Tar Heels outplayed the defending national champions in the extra session and now move on to an unlikely Sweet 16 after spending a good portion of the year on the bubble in Davis’ first season as the North Carolina head coach. They will meet the No. 4 UCLA-No. 5 Saint Mary’s winner in Philadelphia on Friday.
“The thing that brings me such great joy is the thing that I desperately wanted for all of these guys the entire season, is for them to have their own stories and testimonies and memories of playing in big-time games and coming up big in that Carolina uniform,” said Davis, the former Knicks guard and longtime North Carolina assistant coach under Roy Williams. “And they just continue to have those stories and those memories. To see their smiles and how happy they are, and the enjoyment that they’re having being together, brings me great joy as a coach.”
R.J. Davis, the White Plains native out of Archbishop Stepinac, had the biggest play of the extra session, a traditional three-point play with 1:18 left to push the lead to six. The sophomore scored a career-high 30 points and added six assists and five rebounds after scoring just four points on 1-for-10 shooting in an opening-round rout of No. 9 Marquette.
“I didn’t want to go home,” the sophomore said. “I mean, there was no time to be tired. When we were going to go to overtime, I knew what was at stake.”
Dontrez Styles’ 3-pointer on the first possession of the extra session gave North Carolina (26-9) an early lead in overtime. Baylor got even on Jeremy Sochan’s layup with 3:02 to go, but only managed a free throw until the final seconds and the result all but decided. Most impressive, the Tar Heels were without two starters, Manek and fouled-out guard Caleb Love, yet still prevailed.
“It was just something,” ACC Player of the Year Armando Bacot said. “It was stressful, for sure.”
Baylor went on an insane run, going from down 25 with 10:49 left to within a single possession with 1:48 to go. Bacot’s three-point play with 1:37 left stunted Baylor’s momentum, but the Bears (27-7) got back to three after a Sochan 3-pointer with 28.7 seconds left. After Bacot missed two free throws, Akinjo’s 3-point play pulled Baylor even at 80 with 15.8 seconds to go. Davis front-rimmed a long 3-pointer, forcing overtime. At that moment, North Carolina came together. It had to move on.
“It was more about staying together,” R.J. Davis said.
The game started to turn after Manek (26 points) was ejected, assessed with a flagrant 2 foul, with 10:08 remaining for an elbow to Sochan’s face after a missed shot. It was 38-13 in Baylor’s favor the rest of regulation.
Baylor seemed poised to equal the largest come-from-behind victory in NCAA Tournament history, set by BYU against Iona in 2012, as the teams headed for overtime. But North Carolina responded like it did down the stretch of the season — the Tar Heels have won 14 of their past 17 games — and became the first team to advance to the second weekend of the tournament.
“All year we’ve just been hearing different things about us, how we’re a soft team, how we don’t like to fight,” Bacot said. “Today, I think we really showed that we can fight. To persevere in a moment like that and just come together, I’m just so proud of everyone.”