Tar Heels Triumph Over Boston College, 48-46

Saturday, February 19

Chapel Hill, N.C.

4:00 PM

North Carolina

Boston College

February 19, 2011 | Men's Basketball

By: UNC Athletic Communications

Feb. 19, 2011

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) - Tyler Zeller scored 16 points and No. 19 North Carolina held off a late rally to beat Boston College 48-46 on Saturday.

Freshmen Kendall Marshall and Harrison Barnes had 10 points each for the Tar Heels (20-6, 10-2 ACC), who held Boston College to season lows of 26.9 percent shooting and total points.

North Carolina overcame its lowest-scoring game under Roy Williams to reach the 20-win mark for the seventh straight season under him.

Joe Trapani and Reggie Jackson scored 13 points apiece for the Eagles (16-10, 6-6), who made it a two-point game on Jackson's 3-pointer with 1:10 left.

After Marshall missed on a drive with about 35 seconds left, Dallas Elmore rebounded and the Eagles called timeout with 17.6 seconds left to set up their final play. With about 5 seconds left, Jackson pulled up for a 3-pointer over 6-foot-10 John Henson - the ACC's leading shot-blocker - and it rimmed out.

This one ended up much closer than the last meeting - a 32-point North Carolina rout - but BC still was denied its first winning streak in a month by a Tar Heels defense that routinely worked the Eagles deep into the shot clock and held them to nine offensive rebounds while building a 44-30 rebounding advantage.

The Eagles didn't score until nearly 8 minutes into the game, missed 13 of their first 14 shots in the second half and came up shy of their previous scoring low of 51 points against Florida State.

Jackson, the ACC's third-leading scorer, was 5 of 19 from the field. Trapani was 3 of 11.

With former player of the year Tyler Hansbrough watching from behind the scorers' table, the Tar Heels reeled off 13 straight points during a 15-1 run early in the second half that appeared to break the game open. After Marshall and Barnes hit pretty spinning layups down the lane, John Henson capped the run with a dunk that made it 39-24 with 11 1/2 minutes left.

That was the only thing that qualified as a run for a North Carolina team that entered with the ACC's second-most productive offense and was facing one of the league's worst defenses.

Points certainly were much tougher to come by than they were earlier this month, when North Carolina embarrassed the Eagles 106-74 in Boston. The Eagles didn't score until Trapani hit a 3 more than 7 1/2 minutes into the game Saturday.

The Tar Heels led 21-20 at the break, and both teams were held to first-half scoring lows. North Carolina's matched their single-half low during the Williams era, a mark first established last season at Georgia Tech.