CHAPEL HILL—North Carolina broke open a close game against upset-minded Oregon State with a third-quarter explosion.
Leading by two at the half, 3-seeded UNC used the big third-quarter rally to roll to a 70-49 win over the 14-seed. The Tar Heels will face 6-seed West Virginia in Monday’s second round game.
UNC was hosting NCAA tournament games for the first time since 2015 and led by a slim 26-24 margin at the half. Fifth-year graduate student Lexi Donarski had just two points on 1-of-6 shooting, missing both of her first-half 3-point attempts.
Donarski, a 40% 3-point shooter on the season, matched her season scoring average of 10.9 points per game in first 200 seconds after halftime.
Donarski went on a personal 11-0 run, knocking down three 3-pointers and a layup—missing the free throw that would have given her an old-fashioned three-point play—to open the second half. After an Oregon State score, Donarski hit another three to account for UNC’s first 14 points of the third quarter.
By the time the dust cleared, the Tar Heels had outscored the Beavers, 30-9, with Donarski pouring in 17 points in the quarter, outscoring both Oregon State and the rest of her UNC teammates.
“It was a little rusty coming off of two weeks without a game,” said UNC coach Courtney Banghart, “but we really got to find our rhythm and show the progress we’ve made in the second half, being crisper, moving it better, shooting it with better pace and rhythm.”
Donarski shrugged off questions about her hot shooting, crediting a Tar Heel defense that had two steals and a blocked shot in her personal quarter-opening run and held Oregon State to 2-of-11 shooting in the third.
“I think it was really the defensive intensity that we came out with,” Donarski said. “We pressured them and were able to turn them over. I feel like over half of our steals that we had in this game had to have come from that third quarter. Just pushing pace offensively through our defense. The majority of those looks were in transition.”
As the Tar Heels pulled away in the second half, fifth-year senior Alyssa Ustby provided the drama as she chased down the UNC career rebounding record. Her nine rebounds gave her 1,253 for UNC, moving her past Bernadette McGlade, who had held the school mark since 1980.
“Alyssa, what do you say about a kid that just set the rebound record at a school and a program that is as rich in tradition as this one?” said Banghart. “It’s hard to come to a place like this and do something that hasn’t been done before, right, or be No. 1, and couldn’t happen to a more deserving kid.”
“That’s not a goal that I set out to reach right when I got on campus,” said Ustby. “I just trusted that if I did the right things under Coach Banghart, then those things would come. So, I never really had to worry about it.”
