Duke-Carolina games are no fun. Until they are over and your team has won.
Most of them, like Saturday night, are 2-4 Tums or a roll of Rolaids affairs, with way more heart palpitations than lead changes (23 in this one, plus 14 ties) and the frustration of telling the ACC Player of the Year NOT to shoot after he clangs his first six hurried heaves like he was racing the clock in an NBA three-point contest.
The games are almost always great, and worthy of national television for every renewal since 1986 because, in the words of Mike Krzyzewski, “They’re really good and we’re really good, and we both have great programs. We understand who we represent and so do they. So both teams really bring it.”
Coach K also said, basically, they make plays, we make plays and, tonight, they made a few more plays. “It’s not like nuclear science.”
Well, then, why does it feel like we all have our fingers on the red button ready to press it when the Heels fall behind by six points? Six frickin’ points – or two Joel Berry bombs that hit nothin’ but net.
Maybe not science, but it is a chess game to test the Queen of Katwe. We try to get the ball inside to our bigs, which is why Carolina makes 34 baskets on 19 assists. Duke is expert at spacing out, driving the rock and creating contact – thanks mainly to Krzyzewski’s 12 years as the “NBA Olympic Coach” teaching his players how to draw most of their fouls and fake some of them.
There are heroes like Berry (who would have WON the NBA three-point contest in the first half) and villains like Duke’s Grayson Allen who was booed every time he touched the ball and verbally assaulted when he “drew” a dead ball technical foul for burying his left elbow in freshman Brandon Robinson’s face. Welcome to Duke-Carolina, B-Rob.
The 14-4 ACC regular season champs pulled it out by doing the near impossible against Duke. Jamming the lane with their big men AND covering the three-pointers better than in Durham when Duke nailed 13 of 27 treys and built a 27-point advantage from out there. We know how the Heels won the inside battle – Kennedy Meeks’ and Isaiah Hicks’ combined advantage of 65 pounds against Amile Jefferson and Jayson Tatum or Harry Giles (or whoever Coach K tried to play at powerless forward).
That’s not Duke’s game. Driving-dishing-drilling three-pointers is how the Blue Devils win most years. But this time, Carolina limited them to 19 long shots (three in the frenzied finals minutes trying to make up a six-point deficit), and converting only seven. Just one more than UNC (and two more than SweetBerry), which reduced it to a game of rebounding versus free-throwing by two teams that do each of those things very well.
“It was a huge factor,” Roy Williams said of guarding the outer arc better than last time. “We did it with a little more effort and little more intelligence. Over there, twice a guy penetrated and we lost the three-point shooter, another time we didn’t get help from the weak side, and two times we looked down at their feet and they shot it right in our face. Don’t think we did any of that tonight.”
Although it seemed like the sensational Luke Kennard made more, he hit only two three-pointers. Kennard is the most dangerous scorer in the ACC and his 28 points matched Berry’s total and kept Duke in it with stops and pops, pivots and push shots and the tried-and-true Duke tradition of drawing fouls by initiating contact (Allen is even better at it than Cool Hand Luke).
Duke shot 14 more free throws than Carolina, but the Heels made 3-of-4 while protecting their late lead and going unbeaten at home (16-0) for the third time under ol’ Roy. One of those FTs came from Hicks after finishing a three-point play on a brilliant assist from newly crowned ACC POY Justin Jackson who had started the six-point run with his “No, no, no, YES!” laser from top of the key after missing his first six three-pointers, rushing his release the way he did at Virginia Monday night. JJ had another great feed to the cutting Luke Maye, finishing with four assists.
The crowd truly erupted for one of the few times in the tense affair, but still had to hold its collective breath as Duke cut the margin back to one point and had a Kennard trey to regain the lead. He missed, thank God. A minute later, after three straight baskets by Berry, the lead remained six and Duke was done.
The crowd, frankly, could have been better if not for so much nervous energy in the air. The biggest cheer went to Michael Jordan, who emerged at halftime to announce Nike was putting his Jumpman logo on UNC’s football uniforms and predicted that for Larry Fedora’s program the “ceiling is the roof.” (I think His grounded Airness meant sky’s the limit.)
Dean Smith would be wincing if he could see what a commercial conundrum his Dome has become with so much silly stuff on the video boards that’s tied to sponsorship and does not really keep the crowd revved up during timeouts, such as Name That Tune, Air Guitar, ’Gram of the Game and endless Tweets that show just how much social media has taken over the world.
When the fans did something in unison, Williams tried to wave off cheers of “OVER-RATED” as Duke disappointment Giles stepped to the free throw.
Dad-gum, Roy began after the game, “Every time the crowd yells over-rated, the other team scores the next basket. We yell over-rated and he makes the free throw.” Jiminy Christmas, he continued, “We’re intelligent, we go to North Carolina. Don’t piss off the other team by being stupid.”
But he smiled slightly when leaving the post-game podium. It’s all good when you end another Duke-Carolina game with more points.
All together now, let’s exhale.
I am so glad you acknowledged the Coach K/USA team connection. Many have said that he does not gain and advantage with that experience, but I don’t see how that is possible. Anyway. I had been thinking the same thing all season. This year, more than most, K seems to have spent extra time teaching his players the proper way to flail around at the slightest contact to draw fouls. Kennard did it almost the whole game, though he didn’t get away with it much. Allen has made a living by throwing his elbow into a defenders chest/gut and pushing them to the rim, only to kick his head back at the slightest resistance. I understand that this has become part of the game, but it really is painful to watch. Just man up and take the contact. One of the worst rules in basketball. Essentially, the offensive player can push the defender where they want, but the defender can’t push back. It makes playing teams like Duke next to impossible to guard unless you are just as fast and strong. That is why Duke had such and advantage at the FT line. Anyway.
Wonderful piece; captures the pulse of the Tarheel nation.