By Kyle Franko

NEW YORK — If Rutgers wanted to use this game against North Carolina as a test to gauge its standing heading into Big East play than there is much work to be done.

Call it a failed midterm.

The Scarlet Knights started cold, stayed cold and were run off the Madison Square Garden floor by the Tar Heels, 78-55, Tuesday night.

They might as well have been stuck on the Garden State Parkway in a foot-and-a-half of snow while UNC flew by them on its snowmobiles.

“We had a lack of determination,” said Rutgers coach Mike Rice. “We were soft and had no determination. When you have those two and your strength was your togetherness and your toughness, that just goes out the window.”

UNC bolted out of the starting block, taking a 14-2 lead in the opening six minutes. After Dane Miller tied the score at two, Rutgers had just one field goal in the next 5 minutes, 47 seconds and the game was all but lost.

It was just one of those nights.

“To come out on national TV with the kind of performance we had its discouraging but at the same time eye-opening,” said forward Jonathan Mitchell, who did score a game-high 20 points. “We need to get better – bottom line. We have to throw everything out the window and get back to gritty, hard-nosed basketball.”

The basketball was anything but Tuesday night for the Scarlet Knights (9-3). They shot 33.9 percent for the game and had to work extra hard just to get a contested look. It didn’t help that they converted only 5 of their 22 3-point attempts.

“Do I have a great team right now? No,” Rice said. “When things happen that aren’t positive, they all try to put it on themselves. That’s the sign of a bad team, a losing team, because it never seems to work. We have to work on that. They have big hearts and they all want to win for one another, but they have to be taught that mental toughness.”

Throw in UNC’s plus-15 rebounding edge and pinpoint shooting and it was a recipe for disaster.

The Tar Heels (9-4) shot 46.8 percent for the game but did most of their damage in the first half. They carved up a typically stout Rutgers defense all night and built a 20-point lead at intermission by connecting on over 50 percent of their field goals, including 6 for 13 from behind the arc.

The 78 points allowed were the most all season by the Scarlet Knights, who had their six-game win streak snapped.

“The first five or six possessions we played frenetic basketball,” Rice said. “We didn’t play simple basketball and that led to transition points, which we all know North Carolina lives on. From there, their confidence from the perimeter grew. They knocked down shots and we didn’t exactly follow the formula very well. A lot of that had to do with their athleticism and talent and our lack of determination.”

UNC won for the fifth time in six games after a 4-3 start to the year.

Leslie McDonald finished with 14 points to lead the Tar Heels and Justin Watts had 10.

But it was really the balanced scoring that did Rutgers in. Ten different players scored for UNC with St. Patrick’s product DexterStrickland and Harrison Barnes putting in nine each.

“We have 10 guys that I feel comfortable with,” said Tar Heels coach Roy Williams. “Everybody is getting a little bit more confidence and that can help us out because college basketball is a long season.”

Miller had eight points and Austin Johnson seven for Rutgers, which now has to regroup before Big East play begins Sunday afternoon with a trip to No. 8 Villanova.

Hopefully with a lesson learned.

“You have to bring it every night,” said guard James Beatty.

NOTES:

• Both teams were affected by the winter storm that pounded the East Coast Sunday.

Beatty didn’t arrive in New York until Tuesday afternoon because he was stranded in North Carolina after going home for the Christmas holiday.

“I knew I would eventually get back,” Beatty said. “It was frustrating because I didn’t just want to show up the day of an play. I wanted to get some repetition with the team but it is what is, and it was tough.”

North Carolina also didn’t arrive until Tuesday afternoon because of the weather and went eight days without practicing as a full team

Strickland, from Rahway, and reserve forward D.J. Johnston, a Pennsylvania native, did not join the team until Tuesday.

• This was the final game of a five-game series between Rutgers and North Carolina. The teams played three times in Chapel Hill, once in Piscataway and once at Madison Square Garden.

The Tar Heels won all five matchups.

The Scarlet Knights are 1-12 all-time against UNC with the only victory coming in a 25-22 shootout back in 1921.