This was one for an era that is almost over.
Despite what devotees of Mike Krzyzewski might think, Duke-Carolina will go on into a new millennium. It began before inducted Hall of Fame coaches controlled the sidelines, and it will continue with two elevated assistants taking over the best rivalry in college basketball (if not all of sports.)
The Tar Heels’ astonishing upset at Cameron may have gone a long way toward rebooting the hyphenated brand, since the game was supposed to be a coronation of the rivalry’s greatest coach more than a contest. It will live on in the annals of both programs, which remember their tallest triumphs and most devastating defeats.
This one represented Duke’s arrogance with a capital A, enhanced by ESPN’s shameless coverage of double boxes during the Kansas-Texas overtime thriller to show pre-game ceremonies at Cameron and using three different channels including one with a “K-Cam” on Krzyzewski F-bombing the refs several times.
Surrounded by former players, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski applauds while being recognized prior to the team’s NCAA college basketball game against North Carolina in Durham, N.C., Saturday, March 5, 2022. The matchup is Krzyzewski’s final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
Would Dean Smith or Roy Williams ever let the day be all about them? They both loved reunions, which honored the players who made them great coaches. Neither ever considered something like a victory tour, especially of Godfatherly, ring-kissing reverence.
Since Smith, UNC always started seniors in the last home game no matter how far down the bench they sat. That Duke’s only senior — Joey Baker, who is averaging 5 points and 13 minutes — never got into the game speaks volumes about the Blue Devils, who had already clinched their first outright ACC regular-season championship since 2006. In those 15 years, by the way, Roy Williams finished first five times.
Give Coach K some longevity achievement award…but he can’t be the GOAT when for 17 and 18 years he wasn’t even the best coach in his own league! During the Smith-Williams eras, both had the better of most statistics you can conjure up.
After trouncing the Tar Heels a month earlier, did anyone who runs the Duke hype machine ever ponder losing this rematch? Was there a way to honor their outgoing coach without the possibility of stumbling before crossing the finish line?
Did you see the faces of the 96 former players in attendance as the game they couldn’t lose was slipping away? Did you watch the true sorrow of students who had slept in tents for two months and painted their bodies blue?
Yet by not playing Baker and limiting the time of sophomore Jeremy Roach, who had 15 points in 21 minutes, Coach K left his legacy game in the hands of his NBA futures — a couple of whom were caught kibbitzing on camera during the somber post-game ceremony.
Meanwhile, the disrespected Tar Heels had steeled themselves under their bible-reading leader who wanted to find the toughness and togetherness he showed as a player. That along with executing his sound game plan of spreading the court for pick-and-rolls down the middle.
All week, Hubert Davis preached from Proverbs: Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Two nights before the game, he showed his players a documentary on the old Celtics-Lakers rivalry, when L.A. coach Pat Riley implored his underdogs to “plant your feet, hold your ground and fight back.” Hubert’s team did just that to post what might be the cornerstone victory of his own coaching career.
In a game that will be impossible to forget for both sides, all things considered, the Tar Heels came of age and pulled off the biggest win of the century-old rivalry.
And, all things considered, it might be the biggest in UNC Basketball history. The seminal win of Davis’ first season as head coach; the most hurtful home loss in Krzyzewski’s 42-year tenure. The odds and emotion seemed overwhelming.
Really, who gave the unranked and under-achieving Tar Heels a chance, besides themselves? Who figured Duke could lose their senior coach’s Senior Game? Nobody over there.
Some new UNC basketball heroes were made on this night, winning a game they can tell their grandchildren about, the prospect of which seemed to thrill Hubert the most.
🎥: Highlights from the 94-81 win 🆚 Duke 🔥#CarolinaFamily pic.twitter.com/P5fxLN85ae
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) March 6, 2022
Armando Bacot suffered the same early foul trouble as in the first game, but after 10 valuable minutes on the bench came back to take over the paint Duke had dominated in the first half.
Even ESPN’s Jay Bilas, one of the dozens of Dukies there to honor his old coach as well as call the game, said Bacot is his choice for ACC Player of the Year after AB’s 23-point, 7-rebound grind.
Brady Manek, the courageous bearded wonder from Oklahoma, called it the “greatest game he’s ever been in” – better than the Sooners’ battles with KU and other rivals in the rough-and-tumble Big 12 – and the reason he chose UNC to play his graduate year. His five 3-pointers highlighted the four teammates who scored 20 or more points, a school record.
The write-in campaign for senior leader Leaky Black to return for a fifth season picked up more steam. Especially when he drove the baseline, got Duke’s special player Paolo Banchero to leave the floor and finished on the other side of the basket with a reverse layup. A new generation of kids may now be spinning balls off backboards “like Leaky” as they once lofted Jordan jumpers.
And while Caleb Love may decide to turn pro, his late-game heroics and near-perfect free-throw shooting are burrowing his own legend into however long he stays. His backcourt mate RJ Davis, perhaps destined to be one of those solid four-year players that Smith and Williams groomed, has guts that far outweigh his 6-foot size.
UNC’s Armando Bacot and Caleb Love celebrate a dunk that punctuated the Tar Heels’ 94-81 victory over the Duke Blue Devils on Saturday, March 5, 2022. (Photo via The Daily Tar Heel/Helen McGinnis.)
These iron five starters played the entire second half and turned the ball over just once against Duke’s full-court changing defenses.
The Heels’ resolve was palpable as they kept battling back from deficits in both halves: executing high ball screens freeing up Bacot underneath or Manek at the arc, or Davis and Love driving into the teeth of Duke’s defense.
Whatever the reviews thus far, Hubert has this victory etched onto his resume. It may give the Carolina basketball brand just the boost it needs after some uneven years.
Surely, impressionable recruits watched the Duke myth take a hit as the Blue Devils’ latest one-and-dones crumbled under sudden game pressure before the celebrity-laden crowd.
Afterward, teary-eyed students sat like rats trapped on a sunken ship for what was a painful post-game fete for their retiring coach, which ESPN covered live in its entirety and seemed far more funereal than festive.
Krzyzewski, who was facing the fifth Carolina coach in his four-plus decades of Duke, began his remarks by saying “today was unacceptable.”
Maybe there, but not in other places, for sure.
Photo via AP Photo/Gerry Broome.
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