CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Jerome Robinson was wearing a gray hoodie, drinking from a clear plastic bottle. And texting — Robinson was texting during pregame warm-ups, too.
He should not have been doing any of those things.
But with a broken right wrist, there was not much else Robinson could do. Except watch — as much as he could stand to — as No. 2 North Carolina steamrolled his Boston College teammates Saturday afternoon at the Dean Smith Center, 89-62.
“With Jerome out for three weeks, it’s hard to run things,’’ BC coach Jim Christian said. “We’re really shorthanded.’’
“It’s hard. I don’t know.’’
Without Robinson, BC’s second-leading scorer, the Eagles (7-14, 0-8 ACC) could do little right offensively against UNC (19-2, 8-0). Gone were his 11.6 points and more than 33 minutes per game.
Instead, there were turnovers. Twenty-three, to be exact, the most for the Eagles all season.
“That was the difference in the game, obviously,’’ Christian said. “A lot of them were on-ball turnovers, ball-handling turnovers.’’
No one was immune. Leading scorer Eli Carter had seven. Robinson’s replacement in the starting lineup, Sammy Barnes-Thompkins, four. Garland Owens, five.
The giveaways ultimately proved too much for BC to overcome. But before they started throwing the ball away, the Eagles managed to keep the game close.
At times they even looked good.
Through nine minutes, BC held a 16-13 lead. A.J. Turner had hit two wide-open 3-pointers, and the team was working around Carolina’s pressure defense.
“We were attacking it, and in the first half, and sometimes even in the second half, we were breaking the trap,’’ Turner said. “We were converting off that. And I think sometimes guys can get a little careless with the ball — it happens to all of us.
“So we’ve just got to work on passing and catching, being strong with the ball and not letting stuff like that happen.’’
As he has been all season, Carter was the Eagles’ offensive cog. He would dribble down the court, wait for the double team, and then — at the last second — heave a cross-court pass to the open man.
That worked for about 10 minutes. Then Carter, who finished with 19 points, lost his touch.
Passes too high, passes too low. Passes too fast and passes too slow. It was as if every time he tried to throw the ball into the paint, a UNC defender magically showed up to steal the pass.
“Just knowing that, being the leading scorer on the team, you get the opposing defense’s attention,’’ Carter said.
Then the senior guard tried something else: doing it himself.
That didn’t work well, either.
“When I dribbled, they kind of crashed down,’’ Carter said. “A lot of the guys kind of helped out, so I should’ve gotten rid of the ball a little earlier. It’s something I’ll get used to and I’ll get better at.’’
At one point in the first half, Carter gave the ball away three times in four possessions. He eventually made a few deep threes and floaters, but after the game was out of hand.
The Tar Heels led, 41-30, at the half and never slowed down. Brice Johnson, UNC’s leading scorer, finished with another double-double (17 points, 11 rebounds), his 12th this season. Joel Berry dropped 13 points, and Marcus Paige had 12.
It was just a typical Saturday for the Tar Heels.
“We know we wanted to establish our pressure defense,’’ Paige said. “We were able to get a lot of steals. They also threw the ball away a little bit today, but a lot of that was because of our pressure.’’
So the Eagles, who had as many made baskets as turnovers, lost again, their eighth in a row.
The only difference? This time, Robinson was not a part of the blowout. He sat on the bench in his dark jeans and charcoal sneakers, watching his teammates get dunked on and blocked.
And then, when the final buzzer sounded, he walked away.
