CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina forward Harrison Barnes sent the message loud and clear.

No more than five minutes into Thursday’s game, with an authoritative right-handed dunk, Barnes slammed home a miss and one very important point.

N.C. State still is the
younger brother in this particular rivalry.

The Wolfpack pushed back, but more in a playfighting way than an assertion of dominance. Eventually, North Carolina’s defense provided the proverbial swirly and wedgie on the way to a 74-55 victory inside the Dean Smith Center to record a school record 30th straight home win.

Coming off a bad loss and facing a team tied for first in the ACC, North Carolina might have seemed like the underdog.

That charade didn’t last long.

“I didn’t feel like an underdog,” Barnes said with a laugh. “I felt like we were right where we needed to be. They probably thought it was going to be a different outcome. We just played the game.”

The final seconds might have caused a bigger scar to N.C. State’s pride than being held to a season-low in points. As the final minute ticked away, the chant of, “Not our rivals,” echoed from the North Carolina student section.

“We were really good for certain parts of that game, there’s no question about that,” North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. “We were active defensively and got some blocks and got our running game going. We were really good for that time period.”

North Carolina (17-3 overall, 4-1 ACC) shot well enough in the first half (47.2 percent) to take a 14-point lead at the break, but it was the Tar Heels’ defense that really led the way.

UNC held N.C. State to just 25 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from behind the 3-point arc in the first half. The Wolfpack (15-6, 4-2) shot worse from inside the 3-point line (21.7 percent) in the first half than it did from beyond it.

Some of that was the North Carolina’s defense inside from Tyler Zeller and John Henson, but some of it was poor play from N.C. State.

“We know we aren’t going to get that kind of result just by hoping teams miss,” Williams said. “We have to defend well enough to let our defense have some factor in the fact that they missed a shot.”

Zeller had a double-double by halftime and finished with 21 points and a career-high 17 rebounds. Henson finished with nine points and 10 rebounds, while Barnes chipped in 15 points.

“Hopefully, we can do this every game,” Zeller said with a laugh.

Point guard Kendall Marshall recovered from a poor outing against Virginia Tech (seven turnovers, four assists) to dish out 11 assists and turned over the ball just three times for North Carolina, which beat N.C. State for the 11th straight time to tie the school record for consecutive victories in the series.

The Tar Heels won 11 straight games in the 1930s.

N.C. State struggled for shots everywhere. The Wolfpack shot less than 50 percent in the paint, while sharpshooting guard Scott Wood, who led the conference in 3-point percentage, missed eight shots and six from behind the arc.

Wood was the only player to finish with double figures (11) as N.C. State never showed the necessary poise offensively to pull out a victory and shot a season-low 36.8 percent from the field.

“They took away one option, and we didn’t have the where-with-all to stay with our offense and really grind out good shots,” N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried said.

North Carolina had enough of a lead that it didn’t need to score from the field in the final five minutes.

It didn’t matter.

“We didn’t finish it off,” Williams said.

Not in the final five minutes, but much earlier than that.

Justin Hite can be reached at 407-9951 or jhite@rmtelegram.com.