Charlotte takes North Carolina to overtime in 89-82 loss

NORTH CAROLINA ATHLETICS

North Carolina’s Terrence Brown drives against the Charlotte 49ers' Dorian Finster in an exhibition basketball game at Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill on Oct. 27, 2026.

CHAPEL HILL – The Charlotte 49ers weren’t intimidated.

They took North Carolina to overtime in each team’s final preseason scrimmage before losing 89-82, but the visible improvement under first year coach Wes Miller was evident. 

“[I’m] certainly disappointed we couldn’t close it out,” he said. “I think we’ve been working on our late-game situations for maybe the last seven practices. We tried to focus on that more, but hopefully not closing it out will allow us to get our group’s attention here over the next week before this thing really counts and matters.”

Guard Keyshuan Tillery led Charlotte with 24 points, hitting five three-pointers in the process. He also added three rebounds, two assists and a steal. Another guard, Chaze Harris, came off the bench for 14 points on 6-for-7 shooting. 

“I think there’s things that I saw that were incredibly positive,” Miller said. “We’ve seen that, especially from Keyshuan since the summer. And then there’s areas they both got to really grow. I could go to the positive or the negative, but the positive side, I thought Keyshuan, his awareness of what was going on late in the game, his head being completely in the moment, trying to find a way for us to win. I was really impressed with his growth there as a young player, and he’s in a leadership position for the first time in college. He’s got a lot of room to grow and a long way to go.”

Miller continued: “Chaze is just figuring it out with us. Every week he's going to be better. I mean, 10 days ago he was so lost defensively, not because of him, because he’s just so new to our system. He took a huge step last week, and we still have 25 freaking steps to go.”

One of the few returners from the Aaron Fearne era, Arden Conyers, did not play and Miller said it had nothing to do with injury.

“He started against Georgia,” Miller said. “We talked to the team about this exhibition season – we’re going to start a different lineup every game. We’re still trying to learn our team. My gut tells me it’s going to take us probably through November to really find a solidified lineup to start the game, lineup to finish the game in rotation. We’re going to have a lot of depth.”

Charlotte was up by a point late in regulation after a North Carolina basket with no timeouts when Jaden Fort called for one, which resulted in technical free throws for the Tar Heels. Terrence Brown split the pair to force overtime. 

“I think when you make mistakes like that at the end of the game, I think it’s easy to place blame on the singular guy that called the timeout,” Miller said. “Number one, we have got to do a better job in our huddle of communicating our timeout situation. I know we talked about it, but if it wasn’t communicated in a way that it led to the right action, then we got to look in the mirror as coaches. Number two, we didn’t do a good job of breaking open to get the ball in quick in that situation. I didn’t like that we gave them such an easy two. 

“We had a couple possessions there late in a multi-possession game, we could have had easy twos. We should take the easy two. We have a lot to learn in situation play, but we let them get an easy two. I didn’t like that. Then we should have inbounded it quickly, and our guys didn't get to outlet spots quickly. And then we need to do a better job communicating timeouts.”

Miller wishes there was more practice time before the season opener, but it’s time to move forward. 

“We’re not ready,” he said, “but I’m not sure that there’s many college basketball teams in today’s climate that feel like they’re ready. Maybe there’s 350 of us or something like that. Maybe there’s 40 or 50 teams that feel like we’re ready to go play a game. I think the rest of us wish we had more practice as coaches … but the fact of the matter is, it goes up for real for the first time on Monday.”

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