Reniya Kelly’s Career Scoring Night Helps UNC Snap Two-Game Losing Streak

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Reniya Kelly spent North Carolina’s non-conference schedule playing in games but not practicing. After sustaining a lower-body injury in the offseason, UNC carefully managed her workload so Kelly would be primed for ACC play. 

“She had to be sidelined for a little longer than we would have liked,” head coach Courtney Banghart said after the game. “So, instead of practicing, she wanted to be with our team in games.”

The unconventional approach to managing Kelly’s injury paid off Thursday night. After a slow road to full recovery, the junior guard finally returned to her preseason all-ACC form against Miami.

Kelly recorded a career-high 24 points and powered North Carolina (14-5, 3-3 ACC) to a 73-62 victory over Miami (11-7, 3-4 ACC) on Thursday night at Carmichael Arena. In a much-needed result for the Tar Heels, she supplied crucial shotmaking to help UNC escape a lowly shooting night and snap a two-game ACC skid. 

“Injuries are injuries, but I’m still enduring and still pushing through and progressing each game,” Kelly said. “It’s a lot of work you have to put in, and so coach has trusted me, my teammates have trusted me, sports performance has trusted me, so I’m here just trying to win.”

Less than four minutes into the game, every eye in Carmichael glanced to check the box score on the Jumbotron above midcourt. Kelly had opened the scoring for North Carolina with a trio of smooth pull-up jumpers. 

The first came from the left elbow. The second from the opposite side. Then one more from the nail off a baseline out-of-bounds play. And after her quick six-point bunch, she splashed a 3-pointer for good measure a few minutes later.

By the end of the first quarter, Kelly was up to nine points and started 4-for-4 from the field. At halftime, the 16 points she had were more than any amount she’d tallied in an entire game this season and nearly four times more than her season average of 4.4 points per game. 

As her hot start carried into the second half, Kelly sensed she was headed for a monumental night — even if she didn’t know exactly how big it might become.

“You really never know,” she said. “You just gotta keep shooting. So, that’s what I did.”

Kelly added eight more points in the final two and a half minutes of the third quarter to finish with 24 in total. The last of which were back-to-back 3-pointers that capped off a 10-2 UNC run and helped the Tar Heels pull away from lingering Miami.

If you exclude Kelly’s 9-for-14 shooting performance from the field, including 4-for-5 from beyond the arc, the rest of the North Carolina roster shot 32.2 percent (19-59) from the floor and 13.6 percent (3-22) from three. In other words, they really needed her.

“It’s pretty remarkable how poorly we shot, and we were still able to find a win,” Banghart said. “In part because of Reniya.” 

The payoff from Kelly’s unorthodox play-but-don’t-practice method seemingly arrived at the perfect time for North Carolina. In a pivotal stretch where the Tar Heels still have time to right the ship from a poor ACC start, an uptick in scoring from the junior guard may provide juice for an offense that has struggled to close out games.

But while Kelly’s stat line suggested a long-awaited return to form, Banghart was quick to reject the idea that anything about her game had been missing.

“There are some people who kind of say, ‘Oh, Reniya is back,” Banghart said. “She’s never left. Let’s be clear on that.”