North Carolina’s season-high 13 triples and a freshman-star turn from Caleb Wilson flipped the script on a three-game defensive spiral, exposing a Notre Dame attack still reeling without Markus Burton.
The No. 22 North Carolina Tar Heels didn’t just beat Notre Dame on Wednesday night—they detonated a week’s worth of frustration in 40 minutes, sprinting to a 91-69 victory that looked nothing like the defense-leaky team that had dropped three of its previous four.
Freshman forward Caleb Wilson punished the Irish for 22 points on 8-of-11 shooting, while 7-foot sophomore Henri Veesaar logged his first ACC double-double (15 points, 12 rebounds) to anchor a restored interior presence. The win lifts UNC to 15-4 overall, 3-3 in the conference and—more importantly—re-establishes a defensive identity that had collapsed since league play opened.
Three-Point Therapy: Tar Heels Flip the Script from Deep
Hubert Davis’s crew entered the Dean Smith Center hemorrhaging triples at a 44.9% clip across its first five ACC games, yielding an unsustainable 14 made threes per night. Against Notre Dame, the script flipped in every direction:
- UNC canned a season-best 13 threes on 28 attempts (46.4%), the program’s most since last March’s NCAA opener.
- After intermission, the Irish went ice-cold—2-of-13 from deep—and finished 8-of-25 (32%) overall.
- The 22-point margin is UNC’s largest in ACC play this season and its first double-digit conference win since toppling NC State on Jan. 4.
Inside the 10-0 Burst That Ended It
A manageable 42-33 halftime edge ballooned to 19 before the first media timeout. Veesaar opened the second stanza with a 15-foot jumper, buried the trailing three, then followed his own miss for a lay-in that forced Micah Shrewsberry’s second timeout. The spurt pushed the lead to 52-33; Notre Dame never threatened single digits again.
Wilson’s Post Mastery: Freshman Finds His Spots
Listed at 6-10, 230 pounds, Wilson operated primarily on the left block, turning over both shoulders and finding shooters when double-teams arrived. His five assists matched a career high and tied for team-best, evidence of the passing acumen that made him a top-15 recruit. Wednesday marked his sixth 20-point game of the year—most by any Tar Heel freshman since Harrison Barnes in 2011.
Notre Dame’s Burton-Sized Void
Since losing sophomore point guard Markus Burton to left-ankle surgery on Dec. 10, Notre Dame is 1-6 and averaging just 0.96 points per possession in league games. Sir Mohammed’s 14 points and Jalen Haralson’s 13 provided brief sparks, but with no true table-setter the Irish offense devolved into contested jumpers and late-clock heaves.
What It Means for the ACC Race
North Carolina pulls back into a four-way knot at 3-3 in the muddled ACC middle, within one game of second place and only two off conference-leading Clemson. With Saturday’s trip to No. 14 Virginia looming, Davis’s staff finally has a blueprint: ride Wilson’s interior efficiency, let Veesaar patrol the paint, and live with quick-trigger threes so long as the rotations stay intact.
For Notre Dame, the free-fall continues. At 1-5 in the league and 208th in the NET, an at-large bid is already a mirage; the focus shifts to developing Haralson and protecting Burton’s medical redshirt hope with a cautious late-season return.
Up Next
Notre Dame returns home to face Boston College on Saturday, desperate to stop a five-game slide. UNC buses to Charlottesville for a collision with No. 14 Virginia that suddenly carries top-four seeding implications in both the ACC race and March bracketology.
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