CHAPELHILL— It was halftime and despite North Carolina’s 43-42 lead over Maryland, the sellout crowd in the Dean E.Smith Center was angry.

The fans had not agreed with some of the calls by referee Duke Edsell, who had tagged their beloved coach Matt Doherty with a technical foul and now had done the despicable: he had security eject the Tar Heel mascot.

Seems the mascot wasn’t too enamored with the calls either and as the trio of officials walked toward the tunnel, he playfully pretended to kick one of them.

Edsell grabbed the mascot and got rid of him.

The mascot missed one heck of a second half by his team.

The No. 1-ranked Tar Heels (21-2, 11-0) shot 58 percent in after intermission (and for the game) and ran off to a very impressive 96-82 nationally-televised Atlantic Coast Conference victory.

And the most impressive thing about UNC’s 18th straight victory was that everybody contributed. Everybody.

Jason Capel had a career-high 27 points. Julius Peppers, starting in place of Kris Lang, who has a tender tendon in an ankle, scored a career-high 18 points. Ronald Curry had a career-high eight assists.

Max Owens came off the bench to hit all three of his 3-point shots. Brendan Haywood, the league’s leading shot-blocker, snuffed three Terp efforts and was his usual intimidating self.

In fact, Doherty was so thrilled afterward that he even praised the play of Brian Morrison, who was on the court for all of three minutes, and Brian Bersticker, who played 60 seconds.

“We’re not a one-man team,” announced Joe Forte, who, by the way, scored 23 points, dished out six assists and grabbed seven rebounds.

But it was such a team effort that Forte’s all-around masterpiece went almost unnoticed.

One thing that didn’t go unnoticed was free throw shooting. UNC made 19 of 20, just adding to Maryland coach Gary Williams’ angst. He said he thought free throw shooting would hinder UNC’s attack.

“We thought we could take advantage of some poor free throw percentages,” sighed Williams. “But when they make ‘em all, it’s tough because they can score from the floor.

“Carolina is a real interesting team. They have what every coach would like to have: they can go inside and outside.”

But Maryland (15-8, 6-5) is ranked 13th and played like it, leading by eight at one point in the first half and trailing just 56-53 with 13 minutes left.

That’s when the Tar Heels began putting the nails in Williams’ coffin with a 19-7 run.

In quick order, Curry took the ball the length of the court for a layup. Forte fed Peppers for a 10-footer. Then, Capel went up for a slam that forced Williams to call a timeout with 11:49 left as the Dean Dome erupted.

The Heels pulled away when Juan Dixon and Terence Morris began hoisting up — and missing — long 3-pointers.

“That’s great, isn’t it?” Williams wondered aloud. “We want Juan and Terence taking them but we were covered well by Carolina so they become high-risk shots.”

Lang, playing through pain, sank a hook and then Adam Boone hit a fallaway leaner for a 66-55 lead.

If Boone’s wild shot didn’t have Williams shaking his head in frustration, Owens made sure he drilled the message home.

With North Carolina up 69-60, Owens entered the game and promptly swished two 3-pointers. On the last, he fell into his bench, forcing yet another Terp timeout with the game suddenly out of reach, 75-60.

Maryland got within nine a couple of times, the last at 84-75. but the Heels hit eight straight free throws — four by Forte and two each by Peppers and Curry — to seal things.

Though Doherty loved the result, it wasn’t what he expected.

“I was real nervous about this game because we had a team that had basically five days of getting pats on the back and congratulations about being No. 1 in the country,” he said. “But I thought our execution was pretty good. We got some big games from Cape, Pep and Joe.”

The brutish Peppers, an NFL prospect, got the start for Lang and went 7-of-10 from the floor.

“He might be thinking of going pro in the wrong sport,” Doherty said tongue-in-cheek.

“Nobody was worried (about Peppers replacing Lang),” Haywood said. “Pep’s probably the best all-around player we’ve got.”

Capel helped North Carolina the most in the first half, scoring 13 points and hitting three straight late threes.

“His shots kept us in the game in the first half,” Doherty said.

Doherty likes loyalty to his program and when he was informed why the mascot was ejected, he gave a loyal response.

“I might have to give him a raise.”

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NOTES:Edsell actually made a statement about the incident. “The mascot was acting like he was kicking my partner and that’s not what they’re here for. I then asked for him to be removed.” ... Williams was hit with a technical foul just four minutes into the game. ... North Carolina is 138-23 when ranked No. 1 in the country. ... UNC hit 35 (of 60) shots and assisted on 24 of them. ... North Carolina won’t play again until next Sunday when it travels to Clemson for a 4 p.m. start.