UNC escapes Virginia with 54-51 win

Updated 8:12 p.m.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — North Carolina improvised throughout its 54-51 victory against Virginia on Saturday, and at no time did the Tar Heels improvise more than on what turned out to be their most important offensive play of the game.

Leading by one with less than a minute to play, and with the crowd at the John Paul Jones Arena at its loudest, UNC coach Roy Williams called a play in which senior forward Tyler Zeller was supposed to act as a screener. Instead, Zeller caught a pass from Kendall Marshall, faked a shot and drove the lane for a decisive one-handed dunk.

It put the No. 7 Heels (25-4, 12-2) ahead by three with 13.3 seconds remaining, and No. 25 Virginia (21-7, 8-6) later missed a pair of 3-point attempts that would have tied it. Zeller’s dunk represented the final of his game-high 20 points, though he couldn’t quite explain later how the last two came.

“I’m not sure how I ended up open,” Zeller said. “We’ll watch that later [on film].”

After Zeller first walked into the locker room, he sat in front of his stall with a piece of white cotton in one nostril.

“I had to kind of stick my face somewhere I didn’t want to be,” he said.

And it was that kind of game: Physical and punishing and “hard fought,” said Williams, who later added a more colorful description.

The Heels’ 54 points were their fewest of the season, and their 17 field goals were the fewest they’d made in any victory in Williams’ nine seasons as head coach. UNC shot 33.3 percent – its second-worst shooting performance of the season – but the Heels successfully adapted to a game and a pace that didn’t always go their way.

The Cavaliers, with their demanding defense and patient approach on offense, successfully slowed the pace. And UNC, which tried to force its offense in the first half, instead tried to make the most of its possessions in the second.

“They do a great job of running their offense, and they have no shame in taking 30 seconds to get them a great shot,” Marshall said. “To where maybe we want to get as many possessions as possible. So it was a battle of paces, I guess you could say, and I’m very happy that we’re able to win a game like this.”

Zeller scored UNC’s first 10 points, and John Henson finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds for UNC. But their work on the inside didn’t come easily, and most often came amid a crowd of defenders. Zeller described Virginia’s interior defense as “phenomenal.”

Both Henson and Zeller were instrumental defensively themselves, with both helping to limit Virginia’s Mike Scott to 6 points. He made just 3 of his 13 field goal attempts, but played just 22 minutes amid foul trouble.

Even without many contributions from Scott, Virginia led 30-26 at halftime, and the Cavaliers led by as many as six before P.J. Hairston’s 3 put UNC ahead, 42-41, with 11:14 to play. Virginia briefly led again, 49-48, before a Henson dunk put the Heels up for good with 5:42 to play.

Still, it was a one-point game with about three minutes left, and remained so until Zeller’s dunk. Virginia had two opportunities to make a tying 3-pointer, but Jontel Evans, who led the Cavaliers with 13 points, missed a 30-footer at the final buzzer after UNC’s Harrison Barnes had missed the front end of a one-and-one.

Moments before Barnes’ miss, Virginia’s Sammy Zeglinski missed a baseline 3 with six seconds to play.

“Things like that, you’re not always going to win by skill,” Marshall said of Zeglinski’s miss. “Sometimes it takes luck.”

Photo: UNC's Tyler Zeller dunks with 13.3 seconds to play to secure the Tar Heels' 54-51 victory over Virginia. ROBERT WILLETT - rwillett@newsobserver.com