Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.

The murderer’s row of a schedule could determine Carolina’s fate.

Even with the dramatic win at Syracuse, the next six games looked daunting for the Tar Heels. And with their home loss to Pitt (again), they’re banged-up and frustrated going into the gauntlet at Duke Saturday, when the Blue Devils will be ready for some payback.

It was the game that turned around UNC’s season last year, and it just may be the same stakes on the table this time. Duke is far from the team it was in Coach K’s last hurrah, but the Devils are still talented, big and facing their own critical stretch that could affect their postseason fate, as well.

The blue blood rivals are both unranked for only the fourth such match-up in their glorious history.

Duke is tied with UNC at 7-4 in the ACC, 16-6 overall, and after the ESPN blockbuster at 6:30 p.m. has three of its next four games on the road at No. 23 Miami, No. 6 Virginia and still-dangerous Syracuse. Can you spell HUNGRY to stay unbeaten at home before hitting the road again!

Hubert Davis’ team is now 15-7 and also looking at possibly falling back onto the NCAA tournament bubble with games at Wake Forest Tuesday and home dates against ACC leader Clemson Saturday and Miami Monday, followed by a Sunday visit to hot and vengeful N.C. State (8-4, 18-5) — all within a 15-day span. The previously top-ranked Heels now look like they cannot avoid a second straight season of double-digit defeats under Hubert Davis.

We know they will come out determined to replicate what happened last year at Cameron, which was a microcosm of their entire season. Just like they struggled early and pulled it together in March, Carolina was down seven points deep into the second half before blowing out the Devils over the last 12 minutes of the game and used that as fuel all the way to the Final Four.

Of course, Brady Manek isn’t walking in the door, and it appears more and more how much they miss Manek’s quick release and accuracy from the arc. That forced defenses to go out and try to guard him, which created more space for Armando Bacot to operate and gave Caleb Love, R.J. Davis and Leaky Black lanes to drive and score or hit open shots due to the attention on Manek.

Davis is the biggest concern going into the game. If he injured the finger on his shooting hand at Syracuse and did not fully heal in the eight days before the Pitt game, will it be okay by tomorrow afternoon?

It puts even more on the line for the 259th renewal than enormous pride.

 

Featured image via Todd Melet

Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Related Stories
‹
Chansky's Notebook: NIT Not for All
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Playing in the NIT is good for some teams, not so good for others. Now that all the hubbub over UNC snubbing the National […]
Chansky's Notebook: Beware the Unforeseen
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Unintended consequences have become the cancer of college athletics. Sometimes you have to wonder how smart are some of the people who make rules […]
Chansky's Notebook: Stuck Between Marches
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The good and bad of Tar Heel hoops is on public display. The truth about Carolina basketball, one of the biggest brands in sports, […]
Chansky's Notebook: Last Gasp
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Pick your poison why Carolina is (likely) not going back to the Big Dance. Unless the NCAA tournament bubble explodes due to global warming, […]
Chansky's Notebook: Fleet Feet, Tender Ankle
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Carolina can’t seem to catch a break. The Tar Heels opened the ACC tournament with one of their most impressive games of the season. […]
Chansky's Notebook: Must-Win Match
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Buckle up, Boston College will be one tough out tonight. The Tar Heels have not lost their opening game of the ACC tournament since […]
Chansky's Notebook: True Vindication?
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Who has the mental edge going into this Carolina-Duke game? Paolo Banchero, the freshman first pick in the 2022 NBA draft, was right in […]
Chansky's Notebook: Losing is Winning
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The Tar Heels are better since February 4, but so is Duke. The preseason question about the Blue Devils was not whether they had […]
Chansky's Notebook: High Slamma Jamma
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. If the Virginia game was weird, this one was other-worldly. Armando Bacot hit a single free throw to keep him from going scoreless for […]
Chansky's Notebook: Nothing But The Truth
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. It’s time to evaluate UNC Basketball through the lens of reality. As the Tar Heels head into the eight days that will determine their […]
›