Jaylynn Nash

Women's Basketball

Tar Heels Muscle Past Seminoles to Reach Semifinals

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Alyssa Ustby scored 12 points and grabbed 18 rebounds, and freshman Lanie Grant made two free throws with 7.3 seconds left to give No. 14 North Carolina a 60-56 win over No. 22 Florida State in the quarterfinals of the 2025 Ally Atlantic Coast Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament on Friday, March 7.
 
Reniya Kelly, who missed the previous three games with an injury, hit a jumper with just over a minute remaining to give the Tar Heels the lead, and she connected again near the foul line to make it 58-54 with 20.4 seconds left.
 
Ta’Niya Latson made two free throws for the Seminoles with 11.4 seconds to go but then the Seminoles had to foul three times before Grant went to the line. The 2024 Virginia Gatorade Player of the Year and early enrollee at North Carolina calmly swished the clinchers after a timeout to ice her.
 
The fifth-seeded Tar Heels play the winner of No. 7 NC State and Georgia Tech in the semifinals on Saturday, March 8.
 
Lexi Donarski also scored 12 points for the Tar Heels (27-6) and Indya Nivar added 10. With Maria Gakdeng grabbing 16 rebounds, the Tar Heels had a 53-40 rebounding advantage, 17-9 on the offensive end for a 21-2 difference on second-chance points.
 
Makayla Timpson had 15 points, eight rebounds and tied the ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament record with eight blocks for the fourth-seeded Seminoles (23-8). Latson added 13 points and O’Mariah Gordon had 12.
 
Florida State won the regular-season matchup 86-84 when Latson made a layup as time ran out. This time the nation’s leading scorer was held to half her scoring average on 3-of-14 shooting as the Seminoles had their lowest scoring game of the season.
 
The largest lead in the second half was five points.
 
Of note
  • North Carolina reached the tournament semifinals for the 29th time and the first time under current head coach Courtney Banghart. The Tar Heels’ last semifinal appearance prior to this year came in 2014.
  • The Tar Heels’ 27 wins this season are their most under Banghart, who took the helm prior to the 2019-20 season, and their most since 2015.
  • The Seminoles entered the game as the nation’s leading scoring team at 88.2 points per game.
  • Ustby needs 17 rebounds to become the UNC program’s all-time leader.
  • Florida State’s Timpson needs one more block to reach 100 for her career. Timpson has more blocks than 200 NCAA Division I teams. The Seminoles had 13 blocked shots as a team on Friday.