North Carolina's Brady Manek looking to make personal history against Baylor

North Carolina dominated Marquette from the opening tip and never looked back as the Tar Heels took down the Golden Eagles 95-63 in the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 64. UNC’s graduate transfer forward Brady Manek had one of his most complete games of his career against the Golden Eagles

Manek was the most productive Tar Heel on the court, finishing with 28 points on five made 3-pointers points and 11 rebounds. He was hot all afternoon and Manek knew it, falling two points shy of tying his career high.

“Yeah, I knew,” Manek said about his scoring total. “You know, just having guys like Caleb [Love] RJ [Davis] Leaky [Black] out there helped me get my open shots.”

Caleb Love can be given credit for the 20-2 run during the first half that stretched the North Carolina lead. His six first half 3-pointers gave him 21 at the break and Marquette head coach Shaka Smart’s offense was stifled in almost every aspect of the game. Love finished with 23 points after a rocky second half. Luckily for the Tar Heels, his teammates picked up the slack.

Standout big man Armando Bacot also recorded a double-double as well with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Puff Johnson notched 11 points off the bench as well. Other than those four, no UNC player scored more than four points.

With their victory, the Tar Heels will now advance to the Round of 32 against the defending national champions in Baylor, who are coming off an equally dominating performance against Norfolk State Thursday. During his career at Oklahoma, Manek never made a Sweet 16, and looks to make a bit of personal history, but has a major challenge in front of him.

“You know, this is this is the game I wanted to get back to,” Manek said of Baylor. “[I’ve] never made it past this next round. And that’s what I told him whenever [Hubert Davis] was recruiting me, I want to get back to this spot. And, you know, you’ve got to keep playing hard, playing tough and we do what we did today.”