Short-handed UNC women’s basketball figuring out how to do more with less
Courtney Banghart had to look down at the box score to correct her original impression, which was that Lexi Donarski had played all 40 minutes Thursday night.
“I don’t think I took her out,” Banghart said. “I did. I gave her a bit of a rest. You’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” Donarski said, but if her appreciation was short so was her rest.
Donarski played 38 minutes. Deja Kelly played 38 minutes — only 38, considering she’d played the full 40 in six of the previous nine games. There just aren’t any other options. North Carolina is running out of guards, but the Tar Heels keep finding ways to win — and found a way Thursday to deal No. 6 N.C. State only its fourth loss of the season.
Donarski led North Carolina with 23 points in the 80-70 win over the Wolfpack and Kelly only scored nine but might have had the two biggest of the night, a foot-on-the-line dagger at the third-quarter buzzer that put UNC up 10.
That’s how things would end 10 minutes later. Kelly also had eight assists and no turnovers, so if fatigue has put a dent in her scoring ability, it hasn’t hurt her elsewhere. The Wolfpack, curiously, only pressured the Tar Heels for a brief spell early in the fourth quarter. That felt like a weakness N.C. State would have tried to further exploit.
The Tar Heels got help from forward Ali Zelaya, who had made two 3-pointers in ACC play going into Thursday and doubled that total off the bench, and they were going to need it from somewhere, because Donarski and Kelly have been left carrying a heavy load as the injured multiplied. Kalya McPherson was lost for the season at the beginning of January, Paulina Paris hasn’t played in more than a month and Reniya Kelly has missed the past three games.
As the Tar Heels’ backcourt depth waned, they found themselves on the short end of close games — four points in the first meeting with the Wolfpack in Raleigh and overtime losses at Virginia Tech and Duke; the latter an officiating debacle, especially in the final moments — before putting together this three-game winning streak with a rematch with Virginia Tech up next.
“They’re getting resettled. Again,” Banghart said. “Having Reniya out for a little bit of time, now we’re resettling again. They’re finding their way.”
There’s no question the Tar Heels have adapted. Their practices, Donarski said, are often as much mental exercises as actual exercises. That’s part of the balance North Carolina has had to seek with Kelly and Donarski playing such heavy minutes; if they’re not going to rest during games, they have to find ways to rest during the other five days of a week.
The challenge, obviously, is dancing on that very fine edge between preparation and recuperation, getting enough practice to be ready while still leaving enough in the tank for when it matters. That can be a challenge even with a full roster. With one this depleted, it’s like splitting the atom.
“We’re at a such a load-management point that a lot of it is mental,” Donarski said. “We were able to lock into film, lock into the load that we do get in practice, going as hard as we can and pushing each other. The moments that we do get to go live, need to be full and need to get us prepared for this game and I think we did just that.”
This was N.C. State’s seventh loss in its past 11 trips to Carmichael, an astounding stat considering the Wolfpack’s general dominance over that span. Throw in a couple home losses in other years, and the Wolfpack’s only sweep of the Tar Heels came during the watershed 2022 season, in which a third straight ACC title was followed by an overtime road loss in the Elite Eight.
That dynamic has helped fuel a new golden era of women’s basketball in the Triangle, with all three teams living in or on the periphery of the top 25 and producing some epic local drama, with Banghart often doing as much as anyone to fuel the rivalry fire.
So after all that, when these two only play once next season — yet another unintended consequence of the ACC’s expansion folly — it’s fair to say N.C State coach Wes Moore won’t necessarily miss it as much as the fans who pack both arenas for these games in particular.
“Not really,” Moore said. “I don’t know. It is what it is. I hope we play them at home next year. How about that?”
Then again, things rarely make sense in this series. After last year’s win at Carmichael by a ranked UNC team over a rebuilding rival, the roles were reversed this winter: The Wolfpack, again ascendant, against the short-handed Tar Heels. The results remained the same.
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