Ohio State edges North Carolina to reach Sweet 16

COLUMBUS — Ohio State outlasted North Carolina on Monday night to move on to the third round in the women’s NCAA Tournament.

Senior guard Jacy Sheldon split two defenders and hit a short jump shot in the lane to give Ohio State a 71-69 lead with 1.8 seconds left.

“The plan was to get it in Jacy’s hands, for sure,” Ohio State head coach Kevin McGuff said before crediting Eboni Walker with waiting to get the ball to Sheldon until the time was right after the Tar Heels successfully guarded the initial action. “Then we swung the ball back around and got it back in her hands.”

After Sheldon’s shot, North Carolina called timeout and advanced the ball to halfcourt, but the inbound pass went off the backboard. Rikki Harris grabbed the ball for No. 3 seed Ohio State and flung it into the air, setting off a Sweet 16 celebration for most of the 5,186 in attendance.

“To have as many people show up as we did just really speaks to this community and how they support women’s athletics, specifically women’s basketball,” McGuff said. “I think people are really taking to this team because of how hard we play. Just the character that you can see of the young women in our program. People are really getting behind us and it’s really cool.”

The final possessions capped a wild fourth quarter in which the sixth-seeded Tar Heels erased a 12-point deficit and briefly led with two minutes to go.

Sheldon finished with 16 points while Taylor Mikesell led the Buckeyes with 17. Centerville grad Cotie McMahon scored 14 for Ohio State while Walker added 15.

“You know, I told ‘em in the locker room, sometimes it’s about X’s and O’s and sometimes it’s about having the best player on the court,” McGuff said of Sheldon, who missed 23 games with a leg injury suffered in November.

She returned part-time for the Big Ten Tournament then re-entered the starting lineup Saturday in a first-round win over James Madison in which she scored 17 points.

“Obviously, she’s such a great player and we would want her in every game for as many minutes as possible, but just due to an unfortunate injury we didn’t have that,” McGuff said. “But I think Jacy and the trainer worked really, really hard to get back and to have a chance to impact us like she’s doing down the stretch.”

Deja Kelly, whose jumper tied the game with 9.8 seconds left, had a game-high 22 points for the North Carolina.

“I think we did a great job in that moment keeping our composure and staying focused on winning,” Sheldon said of the response to UNC’s late rally. “I think whether we like it or not, we’ve been down a couple times this year and had to fight back and we’ve done it. So we’ve been there before, so we’re familiar with that feeling. I think at that moment we just all come together and remained confident and keep the eyes on winning and that’s what we did.”

Next up is a matchup Saturday in Seattle with either Connecticut or Baylor, who played later Monday night.

The first five minutes were almost all Ohio State as the Buckeyes raced out to an 11-2 lead.

They were 4 for 8 from the floor, including a trio of 3-pointers, while North Carolina came out ice cold, missing eight of its first nine shots.

But the Tar Heels steadied themselves after the first media timeout, scoring 10 of the next 12 points to get within a point.

Ohio State stretched the lead out to 10 points early in the third quarter with a 6-0 run that included a Mikesell floater, a layup by Taylor Thierry and a tough basket in the lane from McMahon to make it 41-31.

North Carolina got as close as two with three minutes left, but the Buckeyes outscored the visitors 6-3 from there to maintain a five-point lead of 51-46 after three quarters.

In the fourth quarter, North Carolina battled back with nine points in a row despite Kelly going down with an apparent leg injury after absorbing a solid screen from Walker.

Walker ended the run with a pair of free throws to make it 64-61 at the four-minute mark.

North Carolina kept coming, though, and the Tar Heels took their first lead, 67-66, on a Paulina Paris layup with 2:04 to go.

“It’s the beauty of March and it’s the brutality of March,” North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart said. “The worst thing to do is to walk into a locker room and know their heart hurts and tell ‘em it’s over. It’s just the worst, as you can imagine. It’s also, when you know your product and who they were out there, you’re also proud of ‘em.”

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