Hokies show fight, lose late again in another Chapel Hill loss

By Sam Alves

Staff Writer

January 24, 2022

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Remember the last time Virginia Tech beat North Carolina?

Tyrece Radford — who transferred to Texas A&M in August — swept across the key from right to left, took two drawn-out steps and lifted a shot that bounced around the rim until it fell through for a two-point win at the buzzer at Cassell Coliseum.

Virginia Tech had a shot at another win against the Tar Heels Monday night, this time at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, where the Hokies haven’t won since 2007.

Backup freshman point guard Sean Pedulla ran the offense with the rest of the starting five of Keve Aluma, Justyn Mutts, Nahiem Alleyne and Hunter Cattoor.

Pedulla darted to the rim and made a nifty reverse layup to cut the Carolina lead to 54-52 at the 7:44 mark.

That was the closest the Tech made it, however, as the Hokies (10-9, 2-6 Atlantic Coast) couldn’t finish the rally after trailing by as many as 11 in a 78-68 losing effort to the Tar Heels (13-6, 5-3 ACC) on Monday night. You could count on one hand the types of plays Tech made off the bounce — ones like Radford made to beat the Tar Heels in Mike Young’s first year as head coach in Blacksburg — but once again, like it’s happened so many times this season, VT’s shots didn’t fall when it counted the most down the stretch.

“I just feel they made more plays than we did,” Mutts, the senior forward, said. “Forty-minute game, throughout the course of the game we need guys to step up. As coach Young would say, swing the bat. They were able to do that over the duration of the game more efficiently than we were.”

Unsurprisingly, it was UNC’s Armando Bacot — the 6-foot-10, 240-pound junior forward — who put pressure on the Hokies all game long. He scored 12 points in the game’s first six minutes, and though he only added one more field goal the rest of the game, he collected 19 rebounds in 34 minutes before fouling out with the game in little doubt.

“[Bacot]’s a really good player,” Mutts said. “He’s really big…really active, really aggressive, really athletic. He’s a really hard guy to stop. He’s an animal down low. He’s just going to keep coming at you every single pla, not only trying to post you and score that way but when the first shot goes up, that’s when the real battle starts.”

Once the Hokies slowed down Bacot, who Tech head coach Mike Young called “a house” and compared to a grizzly bear, the Tar Heels were ready to attack with the rest of the lineup. All five starters in white and blue scored in double figures with Caleb Love leading the way with 22 points.

But the star of the show late was Oklahoma transfer Brady Manek, who finished with 15 points. His powerful putback slam lit up the crowd late, and he added a fourth three (on eight tries) to help push the game out of reach in the last eight minutes.

“[Manek]’s a catch-and-shoot sniper, and we allowed him to get some space and get him in the air,” Young said. “Can’t do that and expect to keep him under wraps….We call him a dead three. You can’t let a dead three catch and shoot the ball, and we did that.”

The Hokies had similarly balanced scoring, with one glaring exception: Murphy. The Wofford graduate transfer beat the Tar Heels in 2017 with Young as a Terrier, but on Monday night he managed just two points. He was the only starter who didn’t finish in double figures.

Pedulla finished with four points off the bench, though two came with less than a minute left and the Tar Heels mostly guarding the 3-point line. The Edmond, Oklahoma native earned double-digit minutes for the third straight ACC game and once again was not shy to try and make plays off the dribble.

“Coaching Pedulla is not for the faint of heart, and I really admire him,” Young said of his freshman point guard. “He makes more positive plays than he makes negative plays. He helps our team. He played 15 [minutes] tonight. He had four assists and zero turnovers.

“You see the evolution of young people. He stays in the gym and works at it. He is making a real impression on all of us, our staff. [He’s] more comfortable. He’s aggressive — sometimes overly so, but I admire him. I really liked his game, and I like where his career around here is headed.”

Still, despite some more flashes of hope, the Hokies fell short again.

“This is hard for my team,” Young said. “I want to hug ‘em. I told ‘em [after the game,] ‘I know you don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to say it, but I going to say it anyway: Your effort and your attention to detail and your willingness to respond and fight, we’re going to come through this thing, and when we do, it’s going to be beautiful.’”

“ I thought we played well enough in a number of spots tonight to win, but we didn’t.”