CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – For the second time in three seasons, the Wofford men's basketball team upset the nationally-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels in Chapel Hill, defeating the 17th-ranked Tar Heels 68-64 at historic Carmichael Arena on Sunday night.
"That was fun," said Wofford head coach Jay McAuley. "It was an unbelievable effort by our team and one that my coaching staff and I are very proud of. We've got a lot of respect for North Carolina and Coach Williams and we're thankful for the opportunity to play on this stage again. And boy did we play well. I'm really proud of those guys."
The win is Wofford's second win over an Associated Press Top 25 team in program history, with the other coming on December 20, 2017, in the Dean E. Smith Center against the fifth-ranked Tar Heels 79-75. Sunday's game was played in North Carolina's Carmichael Arena due to a scheduling conflict, and was the first regular-season men's basketball game there since 1986.
"There's so much tradition in general here," said McAuley. "But particularly in this facility with all the history that have been here, we knew there was a lot going into this game. We have about five or six guys from two years ago and from last year that competed in this series, so they knew what it was going to take and they certainly led the charge with our younger guys, and it was a total team effort."
Wofford scored 15 points off turnovers, committing just five while forcing 11. With the team battling foul trouble (21 total), the bench continued its strong play, outscoring the Tar Heel reserves 24-8 in the win. Wofford shot 37.9 percent from the field, knocking down 14 threes (14-40) and dishing out 19 assists.
Trevor Stumpe scored a game-high 19 points to go with five assists, three rebounds and two steals. Storm Murphy totaled 15 points with Messiah Jones scoring 13 points, grabbing five rebounds and blocking three shots.
"They're winners," McAuley said of Murphy and Stumpe. "They were a part of that deal two years ago and they played well for us last year. They put a lot of time in. They always keep a really good perspective and belief that they can do some good things for us, and collectively we're a really good team when they play that well."
With its fifth consecutive win, Wofford improves to 7-4 overall and has another top-25 test looming this week, traveling to Duke to face the Blue Devils on Thursday at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2.
Murphy was active early, setting up Stumpe for a three before knocking one down himself. North Carolina pulled ahead by one, but 3-pointers from Tray Hollowell and Murphy put Wofford in front 14-11. The Tar Heels held a slight advantage, but Wofford knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers to pull ahead by seven around the seven-minute mark.
After North Carolina took the lead, the Terriers battled back, getting a pair of 3-pointers from Murphy and a three-point play from Jones that knotted the game up at 28-28. Stumpe scored a pair of buckets inside to make the game 32-32, but the Heels scored the last four points of the half to go into the break ahead 36-32.
"First half, I got some open looks which was great," said Murphy. "My teammates and coaches were telling me to keep shooting. In the second half, I tried to impact the game in other ways. When we moved the ball, UNC was scrambling a bit and we got a lot of open looks."
Stumpe connected on another trey to start the second, with Goodwin scoring inside to give Wofford a one-point lead. After North Carolina took the lead back, Nathan Hoover knocked down his first 3-pointer of the night to even the game at 42-42. Donovan Theme-Love, Isaiah Bigelow and Stumpe all connected from behind the arc, with Jones grabbing an offensive board and scoring inside to make the score 53-42 in favor of the Terriers.
North Carolina climbed back into the game, scoring seven unanswered but Stumpe hit three free throws and fed Jones inside for a slam that made the score 60-51. The Tar Heels cut the lead to four, but a Jones steal and layup out of a Wofford timeout put the Terriers back ahead by seven.
"With guys returning from two years ago, we knew what it was going to take," Stumpe said. "In the second half, we were up double-digits and they went on a run but we just stayed even-keeled and stayed with our game plan."
North Carolina's Anthony Harris drained a three to make the deficit just four with 51 seconds to play, but the Terriers avoided the Tar Heels' trap as Stumpe found Hoover for the game-sealing 3-pointer.
"We had a message of whoever we are playing, regardless of the opponent, we're going to play a certain way, and tonight I thought we put a really good 40 minutes together," McAuley said. "I was really proud of how some things we didn't do in the first half, I think we held them (North Carolina) to two points in transition in the second half, and that was because of how these guys responded."
