If early-season success is any indications, the UNC women’s basketball team is poised to be dangerous in a deep, ACC conference.
Across a Thanksgiving Week during which plenty programs spent their times playing in holiday tournaments, North Carolina played in one itself: the Cancun Challenge. The Tar Heels found great success down in Mexico, winning three games in three days.
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UNC began its journey through the Cancun Challenge with a dominant, 83-48 win against South Dakota State. One individual Tar Heel made history, with star guard Indya Nivar collecting the program’s second-ever triple-double.
Nivar scored 13 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and stole the basketball 10 times, the latter two totals leading all players. Nivar joined Alyssa Ustby in elite company, who recorded North Carolina’s first triple-double in January.
When 3-pointers start falling at a high clip, those teams typically win games. Such was the case for UNC in its second Cancun Challenge matchup, an 85-73 victory over Kansas State, in which the Tar Heels made 14 shots from deep.
Lanie Grant and Nyla Brooks anchored North Carolina’s perimeter shooting barrage, making four threes each. Nivar drained both her threes, while Laila Hull drained a pair off the bench.
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UNC faced a strong challenge from Columbia, which played in Chapel Hill during the NCAA Tournament earlier this year, to end its time in Mexico. The Tar Heels led by just four at halftime – and later eight after three quarters – but pulled away in the final frame for an 80-63 victory.
North Carolina outscored the Lions (4-4), 23-14, in the fourth quarter. UNC rode a balanced scoring attack to the big win, with five players scoring in double-digits. Grant (19), Ciera Toomey (18), Eline Aarnisalo (15) and Nivar (11) anchored the starting lineup, while Nyla Harris (10) added a boost off the bench.
The Tar Heels stay on the road this coming week, heading to Texas for the ACC-SEC Challenge. The Longhorns (7-0) made the Final Four in March.
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: UNC WBB team goes 3-0 in Cancun Challenge, extends win streak to six
