by Matt Bowers
LOUISVILLE, KY.—Armando Bacot returned to the lineup with a double-double and D’Marco Dunn scored a career-high 14 points as North Carolina dominated Louisville, 80-59, at the KFC Yum! Center on Saturday afternoon.
The Tar Heels improved to 12-6 overall this season, 4-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Louisville fell to 2-16, 0-7. Carolina is 19-7 all-time against the Cardinals, including 10-4 since Louisville joined the ACC prior to the 2014-15 season.
Dunn scored his 14 points on 5 of 7 shooting, setting career highs in scoring, field goals and rebounds (five).
Bacot started and posted 14 points and 16 rebounds despite being limited by foul trouble to 25 minutes of action. He played despite a left ankle injury he suffered in the opening minutes of Tuesday night’s loss at Virginia that kept him on the bench for the rest of that loss to the Cavaliers.
Bacot started quickly on Saturday, posting his 59th career double-double by midway through the first period. He extended his own UNC record for most double-digit rebounding games with his 66th, and he needs just one more double-double to tie Hall of Famer Billy Cunningham for the UNC career mark of 60 (set nearly six decades ago from 1962-65). Bacot now has 20 15-rebound games.
Puff Johnson and RJ Davis added 12 points apiece for UNC. El Ellis led Louisville with 22 points, but Carolina’s defense, led by a stingy effort by Dunn, limited him to 6 of 16 shooting.
“I just wanted to stick to our principles,” Dunn said on the Tar Heel Sports Network after the game. “I didn’t want to allow any straight line drives. We were a little lackadaisical at the beginning, and we weren’t locked in. I felt like my role was to bring energy off the bench.”
“When he’s locked in defensively, he is gifted on that end,” UNC head coach Hubert Davis said. “He has great feet, athleticism, long arms and he’s a strong big guard who can guard multiple positions. When he locks in and gives that type of effort, that is huge for us. Not only was he stopping Ellis from scoring, he was keeping him off the free throw line. When you add in his ability to score and knocking down a couple three-pointers, it was a great game for D’Marco.”
Minutes after Louisville’s 9-0 early run gave it a 15-9 advantage, Carolina went on a 9-0 run of its own to take a 24-19 lead and force a Cardinal timeout. The Tar Heels closed the first half on a 30-11 run, taking their biggest lead of the opening 20 minutes into the locker room at 37-26. Bacot had a double-double by midway through the first period.
UNC shot 54 percent from the floor in the second half while limiting the Cardinals to 37 percent for the game. The Tar Heels had big advantages in points off turnovers (23 to 8), bench points (26 to 10) and steals (11 to 3).
Pete Nance missed his third consecutive full game after exiting the Wake Forest game on January 4 after less than two minutes due to a strained back.
The Tar Heels will return to action on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. against Boston College in the first of back-to-back home games. NC State will visit the Smith Center next Saturday at 5 p.m.
