No. 11 North Carolina trailed No. 22 UCLA by 11 points midway through the first half but then used an aggressive scrambling, trapping defense to come back to defeat the Bruins 89-76 in the CBS Classic in Brooklyn, NY.

UCLA hit five three pointers, four by Isaac Hamilton, in the first 10 minutes to take a 26-15 lead. After a shot-clock violation by UNC and the under eight minutes TV timeout, the Tar Heels got an earful from Coach Roy Williams and a more aggressive team came out of the huddle.

“I like the way we got some turnovers in the scramble defense, something that we haven’t done much this year,” said Coach Williams, who added that they had practice it a lot this week after not getting much practice time in earlier due to exams and several players being sick.

After pressure defense forced a UCLA turnover, Brice Johnson, who scored a new career-high 27 points, banked one in to start the run. A Marcus Paige to Justin Jackson fastbreak layup cut the deficit to five.

The pressure not only rattled the Bruins, it forced fouls that got a couple of UCLA players in foul trouble. Johnson canned a couple of free throws to cut the Bruin lead to three at 33-30 with 3:48 left in the half.

Theo Pinson threw an alley-oop to Johnson to cut into the lead further and then he scored on a contest driving layup to tie the game at 34 with 2:15 left in the half. A Paige to Johnson fastbreak layup gave Carolina its first lead since 3-2 at 38-36.

The Tar Heels forced 11 of UCLA’s 17 turnovers in the first half and scored 14 points off them to head into the locker room tied at 38.

Carolina went on an 8-0 run to start the second half to take a 46-38 lead following a dunk and free throw by Joel James.

The Tar Heels led by just three however with 11 minutes to go. But a 20-6 UNC run over the next six minutes broke the game open at 78-61 with just over five minutes to play.

For a box score and more on the game, please click here.