Instant Analysis: UNC Responds, Avoids Season-Opening Disaster

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The curtain went up Monday night, and North Carolina’s first act nearly unraveled into a stunning defeat.

The ninth-ranked Tar Heels did enough to overcome Elon 90-76 in the season opener for both college basketball teams at the Smith Center, but fell far short of producing a convincing result or show-stopping performance.

RJ Davis supplied 24 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, and Elliot Cadeau added 17 points and eight assists, as UNC avoided disaster to improve to 103-12 all-time in season-opening games. Carolina built a 16-point lead during the first half, before sliding behind 71-69 in the game’s final seven minutes.

Elon arrived cast as a 27½-point underdog by the oddsmakers on Monday night. And yet the Phoenix rode a 14-0 second-half run into the lead, forcing UNC to respond in order to escape, rather than cruise in for the finish. Davis, the reigning ACC Player of the Year, pumped in 10 points during the concluding 6½ minutes of the game. Carolina closed out Elon with a 21-5 run to end the game.

Seth Trimble contributed a career-high 15 points and Jae’Lyn Withers chipped in 10 points and 10 rebounds for the Tar Heels, who won their 20th straight season opener since losing to Santa Clara in Oakland, Calif., to begin the 2004-05 national championship season. Carolina secured its 23rd consecutive victory in home openers here.

Next, the Tar Heels turn their attention to a highly anticipated showdown that brings together college basketball royalty — Friday night’s elevated road assignment against No. 1 Kansas at venerable Allen Fieldhouse, as the blue-blooded programs’ long and storied histories connect and intersect again. It’s a rematch of the 2022 NCAA championship game won by the Jayhawks, and marks the second-ever time that UNC has played in Lawrence, Kan., and the first such occasion since 1960.

On Monday night, Elon’s zone defense had UNC playing in spurts and lulls. TJ Simpkins’ 18 points off the bench, Nick Dorn’s 17 points and Sam Sherry’s 15 points topped four scorers in double digits for the Phoenix. Elon has gone 21-43 under coach Billy Taylor across the last two seasons, and has been picked to finish 12th among the 14 teams in the CAA preseason poll entering this season.

UNC guard RJ Davis tries to find room against Elon on Monday night. (Photo: Jim Hawkins / Inside Carolina)

Fits and starts for Tar Heels in first half

Trimble led Carolina with 12 points during the first half, and his tough defense in the closing seconds prior to intermission allowed the Tar Heels to take a 51-39 lead into the halftime break. As Elon guard TK Simpkins worked a ball screen with Sherry, Trimble quickly navigated changing assignments and recovered on the switch to get up and reject the 6-foot-11 big man Sherry’s attempt at the rim.

UNC built a lead as large as 42-26 during the first half, after trailing 19-17 in the game’s first 8½ minutes. A sleepwalking stretch allowed Elon to put together a 13-2 run and pull within 44-39, before the Tar Heels found another burst.

Carolina rode a number of spurts and worked through some lulls across the course of Monday night’s opening half of the 2024-25 season. The Tar Heels dipped to 7-for-20 shooting from the field, before launching a 15-2 run that featured Withers sinking his first corner 3-pointer and then swinging off the rim after catching a lob from Cadeau for a dunk.

That surge began with Carolina packing a 9-0 burst into a matter of an 81-second blur, with Drake Powell making things happen off the bench. Powell drilled a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer, picked up a steal out high for a fast-breaking layup, and floated a lob to Trimble for a big dunk. That slam had Trimble fired up and flexing, as the Tar Heels led 26-19.

Next on the schedule

UNC travels and plays at top-ranked Kansas on Friday night, a spotlighted showdown that provides the stage for one of the marquee matchups in college basketball here during the opening week of the new season. The Tar Heels’ only previous appearance at Allen Fieldhouse was a 78-70 victory on Dec. 17, 1960, in Frank McGuire’s final season as coach of the program and Dean Smith’s third season as an assistant coach at Carolina. Smith was 29 years old then. The return game in this home-and-home series is set for next season, with the Jayhawks visiting the Smith Center on Nov. 14, 2025, to play in Chapel Hill for the first time.

Kansas blasted Howard 87-57 on Monday night in its season-opening assignment. UNC and Kansas have squared off 12 previous times with each team winning six games apiece, including four straight victories by the Jayhawks across the last 17 seasons, all of them in the NCAA Tournament. Prior to the four-game slide in the all-time series, the Tar Heels defeated Kansas in the 1993 Final Four, on their way to claiming the national crown, and the 2002 Preseason NIT. Twenty years later, the 2022 NCAA championship game was hanging in the balance the last time these programs met. Kansas overcame Carolina’s 15-point halftime lead that night in New Orleans to prevail 72-69, and claim coach Bill Self’s second national title.

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