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CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina’s Deon Thompson looked at the scoreboard at halftime of Tuesday’s game against Michigan State and had a little bit of déjà vu.
The Tar Heels defeated the Spartans twice during the 2008-09 season, including the national championship game in April. And the 50 points in the first half of Tuesday night’s Big Ten/ACC Challenge made it three games in a row against MSU for the Heels to lead by double-digits.
But Thompson, the only returning starter from that national title squad, also knew the game wasn’t over.
Just as Thompson expected, MSU made a run in the second half, but No. 10 UNC held off the No. 9 Spartans for an 89-82 victory at the Smith Center.
“It’s a great win for this team,” said Thompson, who finished with 14 points. “It’s something that we really did need at this point in time where we’ve got [No. 5] Kentucky and
[No. 2] Texas waiting for us. A win like this where guys are playing intense is just really good for us.”
It’s the fourth straight game the Tar Heels have topped the Spartans, but Tuesday’s game wasn’t the blowouts of a year ago. UNC (7-1) led by as many as 19, but the Spartans (5-2) cut the lead to six with 1:28 to play. Ed Davis then sunk two free throws to put the Tar Heels back up by eight with 1:08 to go, but the Tar Heels kept things interesting over the final minute as by making just 5-of-10 from the free throw line.
But Will Graves came up with two big tip-outs that allowed the Tar Heels to come up with defensive rebounds, and the Spartans never got any closer.
“It’s not typical for our team to miss free throws, and it is not typical for Will Graves to do the little things he did on the two big tip-outs,” UNC coach Roy Williams said. “I told him he has been in my doghouse so bad and I said a few things to him that I would never say in public, but those were two big plays.”
Davis led the Tar Heels with a career-high 22 points and sophomore Larry Drew II also added a career-high with 18 points.
Yet the players who had the biggest impact on the game might have been UNC’s freshmen. So far, the Tar Heels’ five freshmen have been underwhelming, but they broke out of their shells in their team’s biggest game this season.
With the scored tied at 19 eight minutes into the game, the freshmen scored UNC’s next 11 points to put their team up 30-21. John Henson made a follow up dunk, Dexter Strickland hit a 3, each Wear brother hit a jumper and then Strickland took an outlet pass and dribbled almost the entire length of the court for a layup.
Strickland then capped a 10-2 Tar Heel run at the end of the first half that gave UNC a lead 50-34 at the break.
Strickland grabbed a rebound with three seconds left in the half, dribbled down the court, pulled up for a 3 and watched as the ball went through the net as the buzzer sounded. Strickland finished with nine points, which tied his career-high.
“The key thing in the first half was everyone that came in gave us something positive,” Williams said.
UNC couldn’t seem to miss in the first half and shot a blistering 63.6 percent while holding MSU to 38.9 percent from the floor. But while Williams thought his team played well in the first half, he wasn’t as happy with the second. The Tar Heels made just four field goals over the final nine minutes of the game, and Williams said his team got stagnant, which allowed the Spartans to chip away at the lead.
Raymar Morgan led MSU with 18 points and three other players finished in double figures.
“It’s hard to be disappointed and proud of your team at the same time,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “I was really disappointed in the first half. We made a couple of sloppy plays, … and then that shot at the buzzer really took the wind out of our sails.”
