bgorman@heraldsun.com; 419-6668
CHAPEL HILL — For the past four years, North Carolina’s Marcus Ginyard has enjoyed the program’s consistent success and prominence on the national stage.
The Tar Heels won 23 games his freshman year and then at least 30 games the next three seasons, including an NCAA championship in April.
In fact, the Tar Heels had not been ranked below No. 13 in the nation since Feb. 2006, before this week’s poll came out with them ranked No. 24.
So when Wake Forest beat UNC 82-69 on Wednesday to hand the Tar Heels their third straight loss and their fourth in the past five games, Ginyard said he feels like he’s wandered into unchartered territory.
“It’s just something that’s new to us,” Ginyard said. “I can’t ever remember being at home and our fans leaving early because we were down. It hurt a little bit to see that, and it’s just unfortunate that we’re in this position.
“But the bottom line is, we got ourselves here so we’ve got to find a way.”
It also was the first time UNC has lost three consecutive ACC games since 2003 when it lost five straight games in Matt Doherty’s final season as head coach.
And like that team, this year’s Tar Heels (12-7, 1-3) currently are sitting near the bottom of the ACC standings with things about to get tougher in the next few weeks as they play three of their next four games on the road. UNC is 1-5 away from Chapel Hill this season.
“We’re extremely disappointed and we’re extremely frustrated,” UNC coach Roy Williams said. “It’s something we haven’t been through.
“I didn’t give them a long speech after the game. I old them, ‘We have no chance if we fold. We have no chance if we give in.’ ”
The players said they’re confident the Tar Heels can turn things around, but they will have to play better than they did against the Demon Deacons (13-4, 1-2). UNC shot a season-low
36.6 percent from the floor, while Wake Forest hit 50 percent of its shots, including 9 of 16 from beyond the arc.
The Tar Heels were outrebounded and outscored in the paint and had no fastbreak points.
“We have to do a lot better job in a lot of areas,” Williams said.
It also did not help that UNC’s second-leading scorer and top rebounder, Ed Davis, missed the game with a sprained left ankle. Freshman Travis Wear started in his place and had a solid game (13 points, six rebounds), while senior Deon Thompson had 13 points but grabbed just three rebounds.
Junior Will Graves led the Tar Heels for the second straight game with 16 points and a team-high eight rebounds.
Wake Forest had four players finish in double figures, led by Ishmael Smith and C.J. Harris with 20 points each.
Arguably the most important points for the Demon Deacons came from freshman Ari Stewart, who finished with 11.
UNC had not led since the opening minutes of the game, but the Tar Heels began to threaten Wake Forest’s lead six minutes into the second half when Dexter Strickland cut the score to 47-43.
But Wake’s Tony Woods added a dunk on the other end to push the lead back to six, then Stewart hit three straight 3-pointers to put the game out of reach.
The Tar Heels never got closer than nine the rest of the way.
“It’s very frustrating losing games that we shouldn’t,” Wear said. “You’re kind of mind boggled at this point that you’ve lost three [straight ACC] games and you’re North Carolina.
“But there’s a lot of games left in the season, and we can turn this around really quick and we’ve just got to keep fighting.”
