Saturday night when the No. 8 Tar Heels and No. 17 Blue Devils take the floor at Cameron Indoor Stadium it won’t be just another game in the UNC-Duke rivalry.

With the ACC regular season title just one win away, this game is much bigger than that for UNC head coach Roy Williams and company.

“Winning the conference championship is more important,” Williams said at his press conference Friday. “The fact that we have it at Duke, if we were to win it there—I swear if we happen to win I’m not gonna go around the locker room screaming and chanting, ‘We beat Duke.’

“They’re a great, great program, great team,” the coach continued. “But we have battles every year with them.”

Duke's Brandon Ingram drives on UNC's Justin Jackson during the first matchup between the teams this season. (Todd Melet)

Duke’s Brandon Ingram drives on UNC’s Justin Jackson during the first matchup between the teams this season. (Todd Melet)

While it’s true that Williams has been a part of numerous battles with the Blue Devils—including 26 since he returned to Chapel Hill from his job as head coach at Kansas in 2003—his teams have now come out on the wrong end of the rivalry six of the last seven times.

Since UNC’s current senior class arrived, the Blue Devils have continually found ways to beat the Tar Heels in heartbreaking fashion—including just a couple weeks ago when they stormed back over the final six minutes to steal the game at the Smith Center.

But if you ask Marcus Paige as well, payback really isn’t the top priority for this team right now.

“I agree with Coach,” Paige said. “It wouldn’t matter where we were playing or who we were playing against. If you told us we had one game to be ACC champs, then obviously that would be the biggest game for us in our careers since we haven’t won anything like that.

“The fact that it is in Cameron and we haven’t won there just elevates that even further.”

And that’s the other thing about these Tar Heels.

This group of players has never won an ACC Title or a game at Cameron, sure, but they’ve also struggled in road games everywhere this year.

Despite a 24-6 overall record and an ACC leading 13-4 conference mark, UNC is just 5-5 in true road games.

Williams snapped his fingers Friday when asked what the potential of this group truly is, saying sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not.

Brice Johnson (pictured) and Marcus Paige have yet to win a conference title or a game in Cameron Indoor Stadium. (Photo via Todd Melet)

Brice Johnson (pictured) and Marcus Paige have yet to win a conference title or a game in Cameron Indoor Stadium. (Photo via Todd Melet)

In other words, he has no idea what to expect Saturday, and no intention of making any predictions—especially given what happened in March of 2012, the last time UNC beat Duke in Cameron.

The Tar Heels won that game 88-70 behind 20 points and 10 assists from point guard Kendall Marshall.

“Dumb ol’ Roy Williams gets on the stupid bus [that night] and said to my staff, ‘If we play like that, we can play the last Monday night of the season,’” the coach told reporters. “Then two games later John Henson gets hurt, two games after that Kendall Marshall gets hurt. So I don’t look at it like that.

“That taught me a lesson,” he added. “Because I thought we were the freakin’ best in the country.”

Many analysts still have the Tar Heels entering the NCAA Tournament as a number one seed—and like Williams did four years ago, have proclaimed them one of the nation’s best squads.

Part of that, however, assumes the Tar Heels win on Saturday to clinch the top seed in the ACC.

Whether that happens is obviously still up in the air, but leave it to Paige—a journalism student by day—to tell you what he thinks the story will be when the clock hits triple zeroes Saturday in Durham.

“Tomorrow will say a lot about how far we’ve come this season,” Paige said. “If we play great it’ll be like a turning point. And I expect us to play great. I think we’re getting there.”