UNC trails UCLA 31-28 at halftime in Philadelphia
Posted March 25, 2022 10:44 p.m. EDT
 North Carolina Tar Heels |
73 |
 11UCLA Bruins |
66 |
| Final | |
UNC (26-9) killed a giant last week in top-seed Baylor, but the 8th-seeded Tar Heels trail 4-seed UCLA at the half, 31-28.
The game got off to a fast start without a dead ball in the first nine minutes.
UCLA (27-7) started out 2 of 7 shooting but then made 7 of 8 at the 10:31 mark as part of a 15-4 run to take a 20-14 lead.
UNC had a scoring drought of nearly five minutes.
UCLA led 24-16 with 7:49 to go, but the Tar Heels rallied with a 10-4 spurt to twice cut it to two points.
R.J. Davis picked up his second foul with 3:23 to go in the half.
UCLA then had a stretch of four minutes without a score and UNC got it to 1 point with 1:57 to go, but UCLA's Jaime Jaquez hit a jumper with 1:01 to go to put the Bruins up by 3.
In some ways, UNC is lucky to only trail by 3. The Tar Heels shot 35.3% from the floor and 4 of 14 from 3, missing all three of their free throw attempts. They did win the battle of the boards, out-rebounding UCLA 23-17, and they turned their eight offensive rebounds into 12 second-chance points.
But UCLA shot 48% and felt in control most of the half. The Bruins only attempted six 3-pointers, but made two.
Manek leads all scorers with 10 points on 4 of 6 shooting to go with five rebounds. But UNC's starting backcourt — Davis and Caleb Love — have combined for eight points on 3 of 15 shooting. Love hit his first shot and missed his next seven.
Armando Bacot has six points, but they've come on 3 of 7 shooting and he missed both of his free throw attempts. Bacot does have seven rebounds.
Jules Bernard led UCLA with nine points, while Jaquez added eight. Tyger Campbell had eight points and was 3 of 4 from the foul line, while last year's NCAA Tournament sensation Johnny Juzang had seven points on 3 of 5 shooting.
