UNC’s Proven Bounce-Back Ability Among Its Most Impressive Traits
By David Glenn
Whether the topic is North Carolina’s season-long journey toward the national top 10, or perhaps just the Tar Heels’ huge victory over #4 Duke on Saturday night at the Smith Center, the starting point for understanding the team’s foundation for success is definitely freshman forward Caleb Wilson.
UNC coach Hubert Davis revisited that familiar theme on Saturday night, soon after the Heels’ thrilling 71-68 victory over the Blue Devils. Duke dominated the first half, led 41-29 at the break and once had a 13-point advantage, but Carolina then produced its greatest rivalry comeback of the past 25 years.
Wilson finished with an incredibly efficient 24 points (8-12 field goals, 6-6 free throws, 1-2 3-pointers), plus four rebounds, two assists, two steals and a blocked shot, and 17 of those points came in the first half, while three other UNC starters were posting zeroes in the scoring column.
“He basically put us on his back in the first half,” Davis said. “He’s the one that kept us close. And his confidence, his ability … he doesn’t talk about ‘me’. He never talks about ‘me.’ He’s always talking about ‘we,’ and he’s always talking about ‘the,’ which is the University of North Carolina men’s basketball.”
Another vital theme during Carolina’s gradual rise in the national polls — the Tar Heels started the season at #25, and their #11 (current) ranking is their highest of the campaign — and some of their biggest victories (i.e., at Kentucky, at Virginia, Duke) has been their individual and collective resiliency, whether after a bad possession, a tough defeat, even a disastrous road trip.
In the immediate aftermath of their ugly back-to-back losses to middling Stanford and Cal teams on their West Coast swing in mid-January, the Heels put together a fantastic five-game winning streak that included much-improved defense and dominant, double-digit victories over Notre Dame, Georgia Tech and Syracuse, in addition to their narrow wins over nationally ranked UVa and Duke squads.
Against the Blue Devils, junior center Henri Veesaar, freshman point guard Derek Dixon and senior wing guard Seth Trimble — each a starter on Saturday night — all made emphatic bounce-back statements that underlined their continued ability to fight through adversity and play winning basketball.
Veesaar (zero points, two rebounds) and Dixon (zero points, zero assists, three turnovers) contributed virtually nothing in the first 20 minutes against Duke. Nobody who came off the bench looked particularly good before the break, either, leading to an unpleasant conversation in the Carolina locker room.
“We talked about the mistakes that we’re making, that we can fix those mistakes, and we have the ability to make changes,” Davis said. “So that’s a good thing, when you have problems and you can fix them. … We just started to execute on both ends of the floor, and I felt confident that we can get back in the game.”
Sure enough, Veesaar in particular became a completely different player in the second half. He posted 13 points, nine rebounds and a block over the last 20 minutes, while also playing gritty, smart defense and getting some huge stops against National Player of the Year candidate Cameron Boozer down the stretch.
Similarly, Dixon bounced back very impressively from his first-half goose eggs, posting all eight of his points and all four of his assists in the second half, while also hitting a couple of crucial 3-pointers and making a difficult, cross-court pass to Trimble for the game-winning 3-pointer.
Can you imagine being a true freshman, playing in your first Carolina-Duke game, completely face-planting in the first half in front of the home fans, then ultimately being asked to initiate the offense on the final possession of a tied game?
That’s exactly what Davis asked of Dixon in the final seconds, and the rookie delivered, as needed.
“Obviously, being at this level, being at North Carolina, and playing in these type of games, the light is bright and there’s nowhere to hide,” Davis said. “Caleb and Derek, they don’t run from it. They run towards it.”
Finally, while Trimble’s game-winning 3-pointer from the right corner — along with both of Carolina fans’ ensuing court storms — will be engraved in the legendary Carolina-Duke rivalry forever, it’s very easy to forget the historical backdrop to the Tar Heels’ 2026 edition of The Shot.
Photo via Todd Melet
In the general sense, Trimble had to be mentally strong enough to overcome the reality that he has been a very poor 3-point shooter for the overwhelming majority of his college career. Until about two weeks ago, Trimble’s career 3-point shooting percentage — over more than three and a half seasons, mind you — was about 29 percent, an ugly number that sometimes leads coaches to tell players to stop shooting from long range.
In a more poignant sense, Trimble also had to bounce back from a much more recent disappointment.
During the timeout right before UNC’s next-to-last possession, with less than one minute remaining, Davis drew up a play for Trimble in the team huddle. When Trimble drove into the lane looking for a bucket, Boozer slapped the ball off Trimble’s knee for what could have been a devastating crunch-time turnover.
Instead, just 39 seconds of clock time later, the ball unexpectedly was back in Trimble’s hands, on a play designed for one of the big men to get the final shot. He didn’t hesitate, and he delivered Carolina’s biggest win of the season.
“This is what I came here for,” Trimble said. “It means a lot. It means a lot. I’m getting emotional, but it’s what I came here for — moments like this.”
“That shot was made by the perfect person at the right time,” Davis said. “He’s deserving to be remembered forever.”
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
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