The North Carolina men’s basketball team lost another crucial match against No. 14 Kentucky as their gauntlet of a schedule continues.
UNC once again proved they could play with the best programs in the nation despite failing to secure the victory. Even with the doubt starting to surface, the moral victories continue to drive the Tar Heels while showcasing to the nation that this team can be dangerous come March with Kentucky coach John Calipari them a final-four level team.
The biggest reason for UNC’s 87-83 loss to Kentucky was the rebounding differential, as the Wildcats won the rebound battle 50-36. However, what kept them in it outside of RJ Davis continuing his scoring dominance, was transfer star [autotag]Cormac Ryan[/autotag] coming up big with his best game as a Tar Heel.
Ryan finished with 20 points and four rebounds in 33 minutes of action. Fans had been hoping the transfer could get out of the shooting funk he has been in, so it was a fresh site to see his impact on full display.
Following the loss, Ryan met with the media alongside Davis (RJ) to speak about what went wrong for the final drawn-up play.
“Sometimes you come out of the huddle, and things go differently it is what it is,” Ryan said. “We pick each other up and stay together. We have a lot of faith we are going to execute the late-game situations. Sometimes you gotta play a good team in a tough environment early in the season to find out you have work to do. To finish out games. There’s nobody in the locker room who has more faith in us than Coach Davis to execute our plays. We not going to in specifics of the play, because we going to run it again and win the ball game next time.”
Cormac also spoke about bouncing back after the loss with the team focused on Wednesday’s matchup against Oklahoma.
“We are excited we get to play another great opponent on Wednesday and there’s not an ounce of panic in our locker room. We are confident in our group. We know how good we can be.”
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