ACC Basketball: UNC 77, Wake Forest 68

North Carolina's John Henson (31) grabs a rebound over Wake Forest's Al-Farouq Aminu (1) in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Winston-Salem, N.C., Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

By Joedy McCreary

Associated PressWINSTON-SALEM — A season's worth of lumps piled up for North Carolina. For a change, the defending national champions figured out a way to respond.

The Tar Heels snapped a three-game losing streak and avoided falling below .500 by beating Wake Forest 77-68 on Saturday.

Freshman Leslie McDonald scored a season-high 16 points, Will Graves had 13 points and Larry Drew II added 10 for North Carolina (15-14, 4-10 Atlantic Coast Conference), which had slipped vrom the top of the college basketball world to the bottom of the ACC and entered having lost 10 of 12 while too often wilting when their motivated opponents began taking out frustrations on them.

But by locking down on Al-Farouq Aminu and the rest of the Demon Deacons' scorers, and holding off a late comeback bid, they won their first road game this season outside of the Triangle.

"When they went on a run and when they scored, we attacked back. Right away," freshman John Henson said. "We haven't been doing that, and I think that shows that if we can hold our composure and attack right back, we'll be just fine."

Ari Stewart had 16 points to lead Wake Forest (18-8, 8-6), which shot a season-worst 29.7 percent. L.D. Williams finished with 14 points before fouling out in the final minute, but not before his 3 pulled Wake Forest to 71-68 with 57.3 seconds left.

McDonald followed that with a layup 7 seconds later, then drew a key charge on C.J. Harris with 42 seconds to play. North Carolina was 4 of 6 from the free throw line after that.

"We didn't drop our heads and act like, 'Woe is me — the sky is falling,"' coach Roy Williams said. "They just handled things so much better. I don't think that I changed my tone or tune or anything. I think it was just one of those days that we handled it a lot better."

Ishmael Smith added 12 points on 5-of-21 shooting for the Demon Deacons, who have lost three straight since cracking the national rankings for one week and lost an ACC game at home for the first time this season.

That prompted coach Dino Gaudio to pull up a chair in the locker room and have a heart-to-heart chat with his players, telling them, "This game isn't that complex. ... When you lose on a consistent basis ... you're not doing the fundamentals."

Neither team led by more than five until the Tar Heels used a big run to dig out of their only deficit of the second half. They outscored Wake Forest 16-5 to claim the first double-figure lead for either team.

McDonald hit a 3 with 12:25 left to put North Carolina ahead to stay, Henson dunked off an inbound pass and McDonald came through with a clutch third-chance putback. Graves capped the burst with a 3 to stretch the lead to 57-47 with about 71/2 minutes left.

"We've had a lot of those (results) in the other direction that have beaten us down quite a bit," Williams said. "This should give us some confidence, no question, especially making shots when we had to and getting stops when we had to."

Indeed, the Tar Heels finally have something to celebrate in a centennial season that was threatening to slip away.

Before this one, they hadn't beaten an ACC team not named North Carolina State since opening league play with a home victory against Virginia Tech, and were losing not only games but big men with alarming frequency.

Top rebounder Ed Davis (broken wrist) and freshman David Wear (left hip injury) are likely lost for the year because of their injuries, and Travis Wear missed five games with a sprained ankle. But Travis Wear came back, scoring four points in 12 minutes — and so did a measure of the Tar Heels' self-esteem.

"It's just boosting up our confidence and showing people we're still here, still battling," McDonald said.

Senior guard Marcus Ginyard had 13 rebounds and Henson added 12 boards for North Carolina.

For the Demon Deacons, this certainly wasn't how they wanted to enter the final week of the regular season. They were coming off a 14-point loss to the last-place Wolfpack in which they failed to make a 3-pointer for the first time since 1992.

"Just putting too much pressure on our defense with a lack of offense," Gaudio said.