It’s time for a reality check after UNC’s 63-57 loss at Duke on Saturday.
First of all, most teams that play at Cameron Indoor Stadium do not expect to win. It is the cauldron of college basketball, and for much of the last 40 years Duke has been next-to-unbeatable at home for opponents not named Carolina.
However, that the Tar Heels won over there in Roy Williams’ last season and Hubert Davis’ first was somewhat of an anomaly. In 2021, the Cameron Crazies were not in the building and only a few hundred fans got in due to COVID, and Duke was not headed to the NCAA tournament for only the second time in Coach K’s final 40 years, the first when Mike Krzyzewski missed most of the 1995 season with a bad back.
Last year, a proud Tar Heel team wasn’t given a chance after losing badly at the Smith Center in February, but lit it up over the last 12 minutes to stun the bombastic Blue Devils and their fans getting ready to usher Krzyzewski out in style by again beating the snot out of their arch rivals.
UNC has a much better record in Durham than any other program, with 39 wins in 86 visits there. The next best is N.C. State with 23 wins. Because Dean Smith, Matt Doherty and Williams combined for a 27-30 record at the Blue Devils’ lair, we’ve become accustomed to having a chance at Duke Indoor.
North Carolina forward Jalen Washington, left, looks to pass the ball while guarded by Duke center Dereck Lively II (1) and guard Jeremy Roach (3) in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023, in Durham, N.C. (AP Photo/Jacob Kupferman)
And Carolina certainly had a chance Saturday night, despite shooting poorly and the team with 100 more free throw attempts than any other in the ACC going to the foul line only three times. Still the game was tied 57-57 with 95 seconds left after neither team had scored for 2-plus minutes before Duke tallied the last six points. Freshman Dereck Lively II started by dunking his fifth offensive rebound of the night.
After a timeout, Leaky Black missed an open 3-pointer for the lead and Duke took a TO. Black joined Bacot with a double-double, matching Mondo with 10 rebounds and one point less at 13.
In the pick-and-roll Parcheesi game, rookie head coach Jon Scheyer set up the decisive bucket. Junior Jeremy Roach, Duke’s only non-freshman starter and the game’s high scorer with 20 points, slipped off a high ball screen and had a lane to the basket. Pete Nance hesitated on who to cover and was beaten badly by the uncontested layup.
Rarely, though, has Carolina been outplayed on Coach K court and still managed to win. And even with Duke’s youth and UNC’s vaunted experience, the Blue Devils’ bench outscored Carolina’s subs 8-5 in fewer minutes on the floor.
Scheyer is molding 11 new players, including the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation, into a tall and talented team that was the perfect defensive match-up for this particular Carolina entry. You have read it here and other places that without Brady Manek, the team that went 11-2 from mid-February to April 4 is not the ball club we are currently watching. The Heels may figure out another way to get back to the Final Four, but at this point it looks unlikely.
Duke head coach Jon Scheyer looks on in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against North Carolina on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023, in Durham, N.C. (AP Photo/Jacob Kupferman)
In falling behind Duke by one game in the ACC standings, Carolina is 15-8 overall and seems destined for its fourth straight season of 10 losses or more. Duke (17-6) has a brutal next two weeks and will likely finish with double-digit defeats for only the fourth time in the last 26 years, which is a testament to Krzyzewski’s regular-season consistency, if not his more recent post-season success.
Opponents have spent the entire summer planning how to play the expected No. 1 team in the country and its record-breaking big man whose numbers and double doubles are still good, but Armando Bacot has to fight harder to get the ball in the paint. Without Manek, Davis needs to figure out how to generate better offense and get to the foul line more than the officials sent them there in Durham.
“I can’t believe we only got to the free throw line three times, none in the second half,” Davis said. “I felt like we made good definitive moves to get to the basket, we just didn’t get there.”
That sounded intentionally vague. There was certainly enough contact in the lane to have more whistles blown, but Carolina wasn’t expecting Lively to play the game of his short college career with 14 rebounds and a Duke-Carolina record-setting eight blocked shots. Lively played 33 minutes due to injured co-starter Dariq Whitehead and came in averaging 4.4 rebounds per game. He may never duplicate his most recent numbers, but by the March 4 rematch at the Smith Center hopefully UNC has a better plan to keep him away from the basket.
Some of the rankings have upward and downward arrows next to each team, and Duke and Carolina look to be going in opposite directions. Bacot is getting double-teamed enough to make him conscious of that whenever he gets the ball. He managed only four shots and two points in a second half when UNC hit less than 29 percent.
And the rest of defenses are paying more attention to Caleb Love and R.J. Davis. Black made three wide-open corner long balls in the second half at Duke to keep UNC in the game. Nance, the only UNC starter not in double figures, missed all five treys and made only one of his other five shots.
The Tar Heels had their second straight poor shooting game and put up a season-low of 57 points. Duke shot five percentage points better and went to the foul line 15 times, hitting 11 of them. The Devils usually don’t win the rebounding battle against Carolina, but they are bigger and did this time, 46-40.
The transition game for which UNC is famous was all Duke, 16-0 in a first half that the Tar Heels could have led comfortably instead of trailing by one. They were consistently beaten down the court as Duke scored much more easily compared to what Carolina struggled to get most of the night.
While the Heels made only seven turnovers, Lively’s blocks count as eight more. Much like the Pitt loss, they shot worse in the second half than the first, going 5-for-19 from the arc.
“We had some wide-open 3’s that didn’t go in,” Davis said of their total 7-of-27. “Make one or two of those and get to the foul line a couple more times, and it’s a whole different game.”
True and true. But the margin for error is smaller this season, and with trips to Wake Forest and State around home games against Clemson and Miami, plus no more “sure wins” on the schedule, the execution on both ends must improve fast or the February chatter will revert back to making the NCAA tournament altogether rather than winning it.
Featured photo via AP Photo/Jacob Kupferman.
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