bgorman@heraldsun.com; 419-6668
BOSTON -- North Carolina coach Roy Williams entered Saturday's game against Boston College believing a win over the Eagles would be the spark his slumping team needed.
Williams, who has coached 20 consecutive teams to the NCAA Tournament, thought if UNC could beat BC it would kickstart a run that would see the Tar Heels win their final five games and finish .500 in the ACC to qualify for an NCAA Tournament invitation.
But the Tar Heels could not make it past its first hurdle.
UNC, which trailed by as many as 10 in the second half, got within two with 1:39 to play but never could get over the final hump in a 71-67 loss to the Eagles at Conte Forum for its sixth loss in the past seven games.
More importantly, the loss all but dashed the Tar Heels' NCAA Tournament hopes -- unless they win the ACC Tournament -- and guaranteed UNC will have its first losing season in ACC play since the 6-10 record in 2002-03.
"Now I've got to readjust and see if we can get it done starting on Wednesday night," Williams said. "In my own solid opinion -- and I've never been ... in this position, I've never cared whether it's one seed, two seed or three seed -- but I did last night say, 'All right, we're 3-8. Let's win five in a row and 8-8 will get us in.'
"But we didn't get the first step done."
The only time a Williams-led team has missed the NCAA Tournament was in 1988-89 in his first year as a head coach at Kansas.
"I really felt like we were really excited about going and winning out and getting to a point where they would have to make some tough decisions on our season," said senior Marcus Ginyard, who finished with 10 points. "I thought we were excited about that, but it didn't really translate on the court for the type of play that we needed to win."
The Tar Heels (14-13, 3-9 ACC) trailed 37-36 at the break but opened the second half with a 10-2 run to go up 46-39. That was the last time UNC would lead, however.
Boston College (13-13, 4-8) outscored UNC 24-7 over the next 10 minutes, as the Eagles build their largest lead of the game at 63-53.
The Tar Heels then scored seven straight points, capped by a Deon Thompson (17 points) bucket to cut it to 63-60 with five minutes to play.
But the Tar Heels faltered after that -- Larry Drew II missed a shot, John Henson missed a free throw in the bonus and Drew turned it over before Henson (11 points) was whistled for goaltending to put the Eagles up by five.
The two teams then traded baskets before a Drew layup and ensuing free throw cut the deficit to 67-65 with 1:39 to play, but Rakim Sanders countered with a jumper on the other end and the Tar Heels never got closer.
"I thought if we were going to stop them, we have to stop them from scoring, you can't just trade baskets," Drew said. "One team is going to have to take over at some point; it just seems like it's never us. It's always the other team that wants it more than us."
Reggie Jackson scored 13 of his 17 in the second half to lead the Eagles, while Corey Raji added 16 and Sanders 14.
UNC's Tyler Zeller had nine points and seven rebounds in 16 minutes in his first game back after sitting out 10 games with a stress fracture in his right foot. After the game, Zeller said he was not in any pain but still is working to get back to where he was before the injury -- something the Tar Heels desperately need.
"We've got to find the pride to finish out the year playing with pride," Ginyard said. "If we don't have that, then it's going to continue to be ugly. But we've got to find that pride as a team to play better -- just play better. We don't have to play amazing; we don't have to play great -- just play better."
NOTES -- Williams said that freshman David Wear, who scored just two points in eight minutes against the Eagles, hurt his hip in practice Friday.
