Ebuka Okorie scored 36 points and added nine assists as Stanford rallied from a 12-point second-half deficit to stun No. 14 North Carolina Tar Heels 95-90 on Wednesday night.
Okorie outdid Tar Heels freshman star Caleb Wilson and fueled a late surge that lifted the Stanford Cardinal (14-4, 3-2 ACC) to their second straight win over North Carolina as conference opponents. Stanford trailed by as many as 12 points after halftime before catching fire from beyond the arc.
Jeremy Dent-Smith buried a go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:04 remaining — his sixth of the night — to give Stanford an 88-87 lead. After Wilson turned it over on the ensuing possession, Ryan Agarwal drilled another 3 with 32 seconds left to push the margin to four and seal it at the free-throw line.
Stanford finished 16 of 28 from 3-point range, including 10 makes after the break. It marked the most 3-pointers allowed by a North Carolina team during the tenure of coach Hubert Davis.
Dent-Smith and Agarwal scored 20 points apiece as Stanford won without second-leading scorer Chisom Okpara, who missed the game with a lower-body injury.
Wilson and Henri Veesaar had 26 points each for North Carolina (14-3, 2-2), which led for nearly the entire game but could not close. Stanford had cut the deficit to 47-45 at halftime behind 17 first-half points from Okorie, setting the stage for a second-half comeback.
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