North Carolina moves up to No. 6 in latest AP poll

North Carolina moved as much as No. 6 within the newest ladies’s basketball AP ballot on Monday. 

That is the very best rating the Tar Heels have earned since being named the No. 6 staff in December of 2014. 

Their newest leap comes after a extremely profitable weekend by which UNC received the Phil Knight Invitational. 

The Tar Heels got here into the match as No. 8 and beat then No. 18 Oregon to advance to the championship sport. 

For the title, UNC knocked off then No. 5 Iowa State 73-64 in a formidable comeback trend. The Tar Heels discovered themselves down as a lot as 17 factors within the second quarter, however they rallied again to take the lead within the fourth and saved the benefit for the remainder of the sport. 

Junior guard Deja Kelly led the staff in scoring and recorded her season excessive of 29 factors. Kennedy Todd-Williams and Eva Hodgson had been distinctive from three, taking pictures a mixed 5-7 from past the arc. 

In a weekend filled with disappointment on the lads’s facet of UNC athletics, the ladies’s basketball staff proved that they’re one of many nation’s greatest groups by beating each of its first two ranked opponents. 

The Tar Heels are bringing in a load of expertise from final season coupled with proficient new faces in first-year guard Paulina Paris and redshirt first-year Teonni Key. They’re additionally getting constant double-digit performances from the starters, particularly new starter Eva Hodgson whose common factors per sport has jumped from final 12 months’s 9.1 to 13.3 up to now this season. 

UNC has one other robust check in its subsequent sport because the 6-0 Tar Heels will go to No. 5 Indiana within the ACC/Large 10 Problem. Tip off shall be on Thursday at 6 p.m.