The North Carolina Tar Heels were able to fight off an upset attempt against NC State on Saturday, rallying in the second half as they trailed at halftime.

With NC State getting hot from the three-point line in the first half, they closed that half on a 16-1 break. They held an 8-point lead before North Carolina’s defense ramped up as the Wolfpack had a stretch in which they went 0-for-15 from the field.

That allowed the Tar Heels to take the lead and hold it for good.

While the Wolfpack did cut the lead down to five late, the Tar Heels were able to hold them off and closed out the game with a few free throws and then a few big buckets. The win helped North Carolina maintain sole possession of first place in the ACC with just two games left.

Before we turn the page to Notre Dame on Tuesday night, let’s take a look at what Hubert Davis had to say about his team’s performance.

On the game being chippy

“I don’t mind chippy. There was nothing happening there. I played in the 90s where a fight could break out and you could still play. That was nothing. … I just felt like in this particular game that chippiness ignited us even more. We talked about, you know, having that competitive fire but also keeping your composure and I felt like we did that.”

via Inside Carolina

On Harrison Ingram feeding off physical games

“He does. Harrison was Harrison today. Having a guy on your team that as soon as he walks into the locker room, everyone’s just smiling and laughing. His personality just lifts people up. And then on the court, he just changes. He’s a guy that can guard multiple positions, he can rebound, he can post up, he can hit 3s, offensive rebound, make free throws and he adds another ball handler for us. So with the pressure we can give him the ball, and he can bring it up and initiate offense. And you never have to tell Harrison, ‘let’s play hard.’ He just instinctively in anything, practice, shoot around or obviously a game, brings tremendous energy for us and it fueled us today.”

via Inside Carolina

On grinding out wins in March

“Every game is competitive for us. This is what is required to win games. It would be nice to win every game by 50, but that’s not life. You’re going to have to work, you’re going to have to compete, you’re going to have to prepare, you’re going to have to practice and it’s going to have to translate on game day. And that’s what our guys are doing, and they’ve done that all season. So we knew coming into this game, how talented NC State was and we knew what kind of game it was going to be. And I was just happy with the response in the second half, especially on the defensive end. The crowd was amazing. I mean, there’s just something, it’s all they’re always great, but Saturday afternoon ACC games in a Smith Center it’s even better than great. It’s like magical. And so the crowd really helped us today.”

via Inside Carolina

On RJ Davis' leadership

“All year he’s gotten defensive pressure, and coming off 42 (points) I’m sure they weren’t gonna allow him to get clean looks out there. And you know, again, that’s one of the things that I really like about this team is that it can come from different areas. So like at Virginia, it came from Cormac (Ryan). You know, the next game, it came from RJ. This game to start off, came from Harrison and then everybody else just fills in. So you go into it, you can focus on one person, but there’s a number of parts to this team that allows us to be successful and that’s a sign of a pretty good team.”

via Inside Carolina

On difference in second half during 0/15 stretch for NC State

“All year for the team, it’s always the defense that fuels the offense. That’s something I talk about. That’s something that I preach, that’s what our team is. For us, to be the best that we can be, we have to step it up on the defensive end, we’ve got to rebound and take care of the basketball. But defensively, you know, we stepped up. In the first half NC State was shooting near 60 percent from the field. Just not going to get it done. They’re running their offense like they do in shootaround and getting wide open shots. We weren’t impactful, physical on the ball.

“And that’s something that we had talked about before the game is being competitive on the ball, whether it’s a one-on-one situation, ball screen, in the post. And then the second half, we stepped up and I felt like we were making them work so hard to be able to get a shot and that was allowing them to miss shots. They were coming up short because of our presence on the ball and so and I felt like when things got a little chippy, it ignited us a little bit as well. And I was really happy with how the guys responded in the second half.”

via Inside Carolina 

Story originally appeared on Tarheels Wire