Tyler Zeller scored 23 points and freshman sensation Harrison Barnes added 13 as No. 25 North Carolina bounced back from a pair of losses with a 80-69 victory over North Carolina-Asheville on Tuesday.

A top-10 team to start the season, the Tar Heels (3-2) looked like they did not deserve such a strong billing in back-to-back home losses to unranked Minnesota and Vanderbilt over the weekend. But the Bulldogs proved to be a much more suitable opponent, as North Carolina shot nearly 54 percent in the first half and surged to a 44-31 lead at the break. Zeller was 6-of-6 from the floor in the first half.

The problems from the previous two games began to surface again late in the second half, when Asheville went on a 14-4 run to cut the lead to single digits, but Justin Knox converted a layup out of a timeout with 3:42 left to snap North Carolina out of its funk.

J.P. Primm finished with 21 points to lead Asheville (2-2), which gets to visit another top-25 team in Georgetown on Saturday.