WINSTON-SALEM — It was with a resigned voice that coach Hubert Davis boiled down North Carolina’s latest blowout loss to the essentials.
After Wake Forest wrecked the Tar Heels 98-76 in Atlantic Coast Conference basketball at Joel Coliseum, Davis said the Demon Deacons had the three best players on the court here Saturday night in Jake Laravia, Alondes Williams and Daivien Williamson.
“And it wasn’t even close,” Davis said.
That became one way of explaining another North Carolina catastrophe away from home, as the Tar Heels suffered a second jarring defeat to end a rough week. It marked the first time in 20 years that North Carolina has been beaten by 20 or more points in back-to-back ACC games.
The Tar Heels arrived with the chance to claim a quality win on the road to help their NCAA Tournament credentials and were met by a Wake Forest buzzsaw.
Laravia poured in a career-high 31 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. Williams, the ACC’s leading scorer, delivered 23 points. Williamson supplied 19 points as the Demon Deacons (16-4 overall, 6-3 ACC) found a dominating gear that produced the program’s best scoring total against North Carolina in a regaulation game since 1965.
Brady Manek’s 22 points and RJ Davis’s 18 points topped the Tar Heels (12-6, 4-3), who were coming off their worst ACC loss in 10 years, an 85-57 mauling at Miami. Armando Bacot added 12 points and 12 rebounds for his ninth straight double-double.
“It’s hard to say what’s going on when we’re losing by that much and down by that much and can’t get our way back in,” Manek said. “It’s hard to say what’s going on. They definitely played harder. They were making shots.”
Where does North Carolina go from here? The immediate answer is the short turnaround on the schedule to Monday night’s matchup against Virginia Tech in Chapel Hill.
But if ever there was a fitting visual to illustrate the scene that unfolded here — or unraveled, in the North Carolina case — there were the Tar Heels filing through the postgame handshake line moments after the final horn.
It was a tight situation along the sideline that got tighter and tighter, because Wake Forest’s student fans had commenced a court-storming celebration. As the Demon Deacons shook hands, players dropped out of line and joined the celebrating mob, while North Carolina’s players and coaches were left to turn around and wade through themselves. There simply was no other room remaining, with the mob growing.
“At the end of the day, Williamson, Williams and Laravia were the best players on the floor,” Davis said, “and it wasn’t even close. We didn’t have anybody that could guard Laravia. He controlled the entire game. He punched us in the mouth at the beginning of the game. And Alondes and Daivien, they could get into the paint at any time they wanted to.”
This report will be updated with more information and comments.
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Adam Smith is a sports reporter for the Burlington Times-News and USA TODAY Network. You can reach him by email at asmith@thetimesnews.com or @adam_smithTN on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Times-News: UNC basketball: Wake Forest’s blowout win worsens Tar Heels’ troubles