There was no coming back against No. 1 North Carolina this time.
Led by a Hall of Fame coach and the reigning player of the year, the Tar Heels left Oregon in its fast-breaking dust, winning 98-69 in the Maui Invitational semifinals.
A night after climbing out of an early hole to Alabama to claim a convincing win, the Ducks (3-2) couldn’t overcome a scoreless streak of nearly five minutes in the first half, turning a 10-point deficit at the 11:30 mark in the first half into a 35-12 hole with 6:41 left. Oregon missed nine shots during the stretch.
“Sometimes as a coach you can teach, and the best thing is experience, to go through some adversity – and there was a lot of adversity tonight,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said. “You saw a team that put on a clinic in terms of their defensive intensity and conditioning.”
And with that, the game was effectively over as Roy Williams’ team, which welcomed back preseason player of the year Tyler Hansbrough for the first time all tournament, never slowed down the rest of the night. Hansbrough finished with 16 points in an easy 19 minutes.
The Tar Heels (5-0) went into the halftime locker room shooting 51 percent from the floor and 46 percent behind the three-point line, far outpacing Oregon’s 21 percent field goal shooting and abysmal seven percent shooting – one for 14 – from deep.
The second half wasn’t much better for the Ducks, who shot 30 percent from the floor, compared to Carolina’s 50 percent. Danny Green helped Carolina’s average, as the sophomore forward scored 21 points, including five three-pointers.
Kent had no qualms about calling the Tar Heels his current choice for the national title.
“They’d be my pick right now,” he said.
Oregon’s top scorer for the second straight night was freshman Michael Dunigan, who scored 18 points, including an emphatic dunk on the game’s first possession.
It turned out to be Oregon’s lone lead of the night.
“We’ve got one All-American,” Kent said of Dunigan. “They’ve got eight McDonald’s All-Americans.”
Oregon will play No. 6 Texas today at 1:30 p.m. in its third and final game of the tournament before returning home early Thanksgiving morning.
Garrett Sim was a bright spot for the Ducks, starting his second straight game of the tournament. Sim, who turned 18 during the summer, found himself matched up against Ty Lawson, a junior point guard and one of the best in the nation.
Sim scored 10 points, one of only three Ducks in double-figures, and added three rebounds and six assists.
“I’m pleased with where he’s at,” Kent said.
Matthew Humphrey added 11 points off the bench for Oregon, which received a combined 11 points on 4-of-20 shooting from the field.
Back-to-back games left Kent to sit Dunigan and Josh Crittle for long stretches in the second half of the game, undoubtedly to rest before playing the Longhorns today, who lost 80-81 to Notre Dame.
“We’ve got one whale of a ball game tomorrow against a very, very good basketball game,” Kent said after Tuesday’s game.
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