bgorman@heraldsun.com; 419-6668
CHAPEL HILL -- North Carolina point guard Larry Drew II has no clue what gets into him whenever he plays rival N.C. State.
But whatever it is the Tar Heels sure could use more of it.
Drew scored a team-high 15 points -- 12 in the second half -- and recorded seven assists to lead UNC past N.C. State 74-61 in matchup of the schools at the bottom of the ACC on Saturday at the Smith Center.
In front of a crowd that included more than 200 former players, the Tar Heels ended a four-game losing streak, recorded their first home win since beating Virginia Tech on Jan. 10 and avoided falling to last in the conference.
It was also UNC's eighth straight win over N.C. State. In the Tar Heels' two wins over the Wolfpack this season, Drew has combined for 35 points, 14 assists and three turnovers.
"Maybe it's the color -- the red," said Drew, who played the second half without a turnovers Saturday. "Like bulls, you charge and attack. I don't know what it was, but maybe that's it. I can't really put my finger on it."
It was the Tar Heels' first game without leading rebounder and second-leading scorer Ed Davis, who is out at least six weeks with a broken left wrist, and freshman John Henson earned his first start in Davis' place. Henson played a solid 26 minutes and finished with nine points, eight rebounds and three blocks.
"It was nerve racking, but after the tip, I got all the jitters out," said Henson, who has looked more comfortable since switching from the three to the four position a few games ago.
And it was Henson who helped the Tar Heels put the game away in the second half.
UNC (14-11, 3-7 ACC) led by as many as 10 midway through the second half, but N.C. State (14-12, 2-9 ACC) hit three consecutive buckets to cut the score to 56-52 with 6:18 remaining. A minute later, however, Henson converted a Drew pass into layup and made the ensuing free throw to push UNC's lead back to seven.
Drew took over from there, scoring the Tar Heel's next seven points. He hit a 3-pointer with three seconds left on the shot clock and scored back-to-back layups to give the Tar Heels a 66-54 advantage.
UNC then made 8 of 10 free throws over the final two minutes to seal the victory.
Senior Deon Thompson finished with 12 points, and freshman Dexter Strickland added 11.
"Nobody had a great game statistically, but North Carolina had the most points," UNC coach Roy Williams said.
The difference in the game came down to rebounding, as both teams shot roughly the same -- UNC made 41.7 percent from the floor and N.C. State 41.1 percent.
Even though injuries sidelined three Tar Heel forwards -- Tyler Zeller, Travis Wear and Davis -- they still outrebounded the Wolfpack 44-32 and scored 17 points off 17 offensive rebounds.
NCSU had 10 offensive rebounds but scored just seven points off of those, all in the first half.
N.C. State's big man Tracy Smith, who was double-teamed much of the game, finished with 20 points, while teammate Javier Gonzalez recorded 13. It was the first time this season the Tar Heels have held an ACC guard to fewer than 19 points.
"I'm not sure when this program is ever really down," N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe said. "They have struggled a little bit as Coach [Williams] said to me, but there's a lot of pride here and a lot of tradition here. I'm just more disappointed that we didn't come out in the second half, [and] we weren't smart."
