WRAL Sports Fan

WRALSportsFan

Heels Escape With 83-82 Win Over Georgia Tech

By Guy Curtright

Jan 17, 2008

Atlanta — Georgia Tech had history on its side if nothing else.

The Yellow Jackets had beaten North Carolina four consecutive times at home and knocked off the Tar Heels three times over an 11-month stretch in the early 1990s when UNC was ranked No. 1 each time.

Georgia Tech laid another trap Wednesday night at Alexander Memorial Coliseum. This time the top-ranked Tar Heels escaped.

Down by seven points early in the second half, North Carolina rallied for an 83-82 victory and remained unbeaten. It certainly wasn’t easy.

Danny Green made one of two free throws with 22.6 second remaining to break a tie and North Carolina survived at the end as Georgia Tech’s Zach Peacock missed two chances in the closing seconds.

Tyler Hansbrough, who helped stop one of Peacock’s tries, scored 27 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead the Tar Heels, who are 18-0 overall and 3-0 in the ACC.

“I think we were lucky in a way,” Hansbrough said.

“One that last play, I knew that he was driving so I went over and tried to block it,” the 6-foot-9 junior standout said. “I think I got a piece of it.”

So did the 6-foot-5 Green.

Hansbrough had blood on his face afterward, a testament to the fierceness of the game.

“it was a really, really rough game,” he said.

Georgia Tech lost just 71-66 at home against No. 2-ranked Kansas in early December and gave No. 1 Carolina even more of a scare.

Georgia Tech has the ACC’s only losing record at 7-9 and is 0-3 in the conference. But the Yellow Jackets definitely didn’t play like a cellar team against the Tar Heels.

Roy Williams had never won at Georgia Tech since taking over as North Carolina coach and neither had any of his players.

“We were reminded of that at practice [on Wednesday],” junior guard Marcus Ginyard said. “That’s why this victory is special.”

“But we can definitely play better,” Hansbrough said.

“They swarmed around the ball and swarmed around Tyler,” Williams said.

But it doing that, the Yellow Jackets sent North Carolina to the foul line 26 times and the Tar Heels made 21. Hansbrough was 13-for-15, although one of the misses came late in the game.

Green’s late miss also could have been costly. “It would have been better to have the winning points, not point,” he said.

With North Carolina leading the ACC in scoring and Georgia Tech ranked last on defense, it figured to be a high-scoring game.

That’s exactly what it was, especially early. It just wasn’t one-sided.

The game was tied 16 times and neither team led by more than eight points.

The Tar Heels held frigid-shooting N.C. State to 13 first-half points on Saturday, but Georgia Tech had more than that before the game was six minutes old.

“We gave them too many open shots,” Williams said.

North Carolina led 48-46 at halftime after Georgia Tech freshman point guard Mo Miller hit a jumper at the buzzer.

Hansbrough had 18 points in the first half, with 10 of them coming in the first five minutes.

North Carolina shot 55.9 per cent in the first half and Georgia Tech hit 51.3 per cent.

But the Tar Heels cooled to 37.9 per cent in the second half and finished the game just 2-for-10 from behind the arc.

“I feel very lucky,” Williams said. “They had two shots at it in the end.”

Added the coach, “Nobody on our staff [or any of our players] had won here except me when I was an assistant, and that was 800 years ago.”

Now everyone has. But it certainly was a war. Upset-minded Georgia Tech saw to that.