No. 17 North Carolina Tar Heels Survive a Scare Against Clemson Tigers

Senior Night at the Dean E. Smith Center was supposed to be a celebration. Balloons, tears, a guard of honor, maybe a few easy buckets to send the crowd home happy. Instead, North Carolina fans got something far more stressful — a dogfight that went right down to the wire against a Clemson team that absolutely refused to read the script.

Final score: North Carolina 67, Clemson 63. And honestly? It felt closer than that.

North Carolina Came Out Hot and Then Hit a Wall

The Tar Heels looked sharp right out of the gates. Seth Trimble, Jarin Stevenson, and Derek Dixon each knocked down threes in the opening minutes, and North Carolina raced out to an 11-5 lead. The Smith Center was rocking. Good vibes all around.

Then Henri Veesaar picked up his second foul. Everything fell apart almost immediately. Without their 7-foot-3 anchor in the middle, North Carolina went ice cold. No field goals, a 10-2 run surrendered to the Tigers, and suddenly the Tar Heels were trailing 19-17 with under eight minutes left in the half. The energy in the building shifted. That anxious, hand-wringing tension that only college basketball can produce started creeping in.

Head Coach Hubert Davis read the room and put Veesaar back in. Smart move. North Carolina steadied, Luka Bogavac and Dixon each hit threes, and the Tar Heels clawed back to a 25-23 lead.

But Clemson wasn’t done. Despite shooting just 3-of-14 from three, the Tigers somehow walked into the locker room with a 30-27 lead. Trimble, meanwhile, had 5 points on 1-of-7 shooting. Rough half for the senior guard on his night.

Luka Bogavac Was Absolutely Unconscious In the Second Half

He went out and shot 6-for-8 from three and finished with 20 points. Seventeen of those came in the second half. That’s not just a good game. That’s the kind of game you tell people about for years.

Bogavac came out in the second half and immediately started pushing the tempo. North Carolina had been too slow, too half-court, too predictable in the first half. The Tar Heels made a conscious effort to speed things up, and it worked. North Carolina put together a 12-0 run to take control of the game and looked like they were finally pulling away.

Then Clemson came roaring back with a 7-0 run to tie it at 44. Jonathan Powell answered with a timely three, and North Carolina regained the lead at 47-44 with 11:52 left. A few minutes later, Bogavac drained his fifth and sixth threes of the night to push it to 59-55, and Clemson called a timeout.

North Carolina Holds On

RJ Godfrey was an absolute menace all night. The Clemson forward scored a season-high 22 points, going 10-of-12 from the field, and was practically impossible to stop in the paint. Clemson managed 34 points in the lane. North Carolina managed 18. That’s a lopsided number that tells you exactly how physical and uncomfortable this game was.

With the Tar Heels clinging to a 61-55 lead late, Clemson mounted one final push — an 8-3 run that cut it to a single point with under 20 seconds to play. The Smith Center held its collective breath.

Bogavac hit both free throws. North Carolina got the stop. Veesaar, who had fouled out by this point, watched helplessly from the bench as Clemson drove inside, missed two layup attempts, and Trimble snagged the game-sealing rebound and hit one free throw to close it out.

What This Means For North Carolina

North Carolina now sits at 24-6 overall and 12-5 in ACC play. More importantly, the Tar Heels finished 18-0 at home. That is the most home wins in program history. That’s not a small thing. That’s a program statement.

However, the paint issues are worth monitoring. Averaging nearly 39 points in the paint over their last three games, North Carolina managed just 18 on Tuesday night. Clemson’s physical front-court took them completely out of their comfort zone, and the Tar Heels shot just 37.9% from the field.

Up next: a trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday night to face No. 1 Duke. The Tar Heels will need to be a whole lot sharper if they want to pull off that one.