Quick Hitters - North Carolina at Duke (Regular Season Finale)

Isaac Schade presents Quick Hitters from North Carolina’s 94-81 road win over Duke on Saturday night to close out the regular season in Coach Mike Krzyzewski's final home game.

Author:
Isaac Schade
Mar 6, 2022 2:04 AM EST

Quick Hitters from North Carolina’s 94-81 road win over Duke on Saturday night to close out the regular season in Coach Mike Krzyzewski's final home game.

Highlights:

Condensed Game:

All week I had been asking the question: Can Carolina ruin Coach K’s retirement party? The resounding answer was “yes”. Knowing the outcome, it makes having dealt with the hoopla surrounding the retirement worth it and all the sweeter that Carolina won.
Not only did Carolina win, but it wasn’t close. It didn’t take a buzzer-beater. Duke didn’t choke. Carolina won. Carolina won by double-digits. Carolina won by double-digits in Cameron. Carolina won by double-digits in Cameron on Senior Night. Carolina won by double-digits in Cameron on Senior Night in Coach K’s final home game.
Aside from how neat it was to spoil this night, the win accomplishes two major things for Carolina’s postseason plans: cements third seed in the ACC Tournament, all-but-guarantees the Heels are in the NCAA Tournament.
I have to ask: How do you feel about Coach Hubert Davis now? At this point, it’s realistic to think that he could be named ACC Coach of the Year. Carolina finishes the regular season with 23 wins and goes 7-3 on the road in ACC play.
Coach Davis needed an iconic win to declare to the college basketball world that the Heels were back. This was it. Coach Williams had the “Marvin-Williams-putback” game and now Coach Davis has the “I-ruined-Coach-K’s-retirement-party” game.
The Pittsburgh loss looms large. Had Carolina won that game, they could have shared the ACC regular season championship with Duke.
The Tar Heels have won three of the last four against their bitter rivals.
The key stretch of the game was the final 3:05 of the first half. Duke had all the momentum and had used a 14-0 run to turn a five point deficit into a nine point lead. Paolo Banchero stepped to the free throw line for a 1-and-1 to push the lead to double-digits. He missed the front end, and Carolina went on an 11-4 run to close the half, including back-to-back threes from Manek and Davis in the final 40 seconds, cutting the lead to two at the half. Reducing that margin allowed Carolina to hang around in the second half and eventually take the lead.

Given all the speculation about who had to perform well for the Heels to spring the upset, I don’t recall hearing anyone utter the name “RJ Davis”, but he was the MVP of the game. Every Tar Heel starter contributed something impactful, but it was Davis’ steady floor leadership and scoring that helped set the tone. Duke proved incapable of stopping his pick-and-roll game as he made great decision after great decision.
Four different Tar Heels finished with 20-plus points. Don’t bother checking the record book, you’ll be wasting your time. Why? Because it was the first time in Carolina history that four players have scored 20 in the same game.
Carolina blocked four shots, and maintained possession on every one of them. Those are the types of little things that win basketball games.
Carolina committed three turnovers in the first 3:11…and then only two more over the final 36:49. For the first time all season, the Heels had more steals (seven) than turnovers (five). Five turnovers is the lowest total this season, edging out the six against Michigan. UNC averaged 6.5 turnovers in its two regular season games against Duke.
Armando Bacot had an opportunity to set the Carolina single-season double-double record but fell three rebounds shy. I think he would gladly trade this victory for any record. He came very close to picking up a third foul in the first half, but the borderline call went in his favor. The big man didn’t pick up a foul in the second half, which was important because:
The five starters played the entirety of the second half. I don’t recall ever seeing such a thing.
In the Bacot vs. Paolo Banchero conversation for ACC Player of the Year, both players scored 23 points, BUT Armando required just 11 shots to get there while Banchero needed 26.

Caleb Love’s performance was quite similar to what he did earlier in the week vs. Syracuse. He shot poorly from the field (4-17), was perfect from the line (12-12), and had a strong assist-to-turnover ratio (5:1). To further illuminate that trend, here are Love’s combined numbers from the week: 10-36 from the floor, 17-17 on free throws, eight assists vs. just one turnover.
Strong performance from Brady Manek. He, similarly to RJ Davis, really filled up the stat sheet. While Bacot didn’t get a double-double, Manek recorded his third of the season (20/11), plus he buried five threes, had three assists vs. just one turnover and had a couple nice defensive stops against Paolo Banchero.
Manek has hit multiple three-pointers in five straight games and at least one three in 22 straight. The grad transfer has hit a three in 29 of Carolina’s 31 games.

When asked this week what chances Carolina had in this game, my response was that for Duke this was about the event, while for Carolina it was about the game itself and all the postseason ramifications that would come along with a victory. I believe that emotion played a huge factor in Carolina’s win.
One of the prevailing questions coming in was how Coach Davis would choose to have his team matchup, given the struggles with Bacot on Banchero in the first meeting and now that Keels is back in the starting lineup. Coach Davis elected to put Manek on Banchero, allowing Leaky to stay on AJ Griffin. When Bacot checked out in favor of Puff Johnson, Leaky switched to Banchero while Johnson marked Griffin.
Johnson contributed two bench points, but that was the extent of the scoring for the non-starters.
If Carolina had any hope of competing in this one, they had to get off to a better start than the first meeting. After Duke fumbled away the opening tip out of bounds, Caleb Love found Bacot cutting down the lane for a dunk. The Heels expanded the lead up to seven before Duke started clawing their way back in. That start doesn’t win you the game, but it helps you avoid getting blown out on the road.
UNC continues to shoot at a historic level from the free throw line. In the last five games they’ve made 80 of their 93 attempts, good for 86.0%. On the season, the Heels are up to 77.0%, still second all-time for Carolina and a full percentage point ahead of the third place team.
Carolina won the rebounding battle this time around, 37-34, after Duke had won that stat category by 16 (40-24) in the first game.
Another Leaky Black performance, just doing Leaky things. Perhaps most important was holding AJ Griffin in check, which he did. The freshman finished with five points, 22 fewer than his output in Chapel Hill. Black had just six points but they all came at extremely opportune moments in the final 5:00 of the second half. Black also contributed five rebounds, shot 2-2 from the free throw line, had three assists and zero turnovers.
Carolina held a six-point lead with 1:47 to go. Many-a-team has folded and allowed the Blue Devils to come back in Cameron under such a scenario. Not tonight.
It was a nightmare programming scenario for ESPN on both ends of the game. At the beginning, Texas and Kansas went to overtime, so the network pushed the beginning of the game to ESPN2, bumping VCU / St. Louis to the ESPN app. On the back end, ESPN planned to show Coach’s K’s festivities, but clearly those were marred by the whole “not winning” thing.
The Tar Heels will take some time to rest and prepare for Thursday’s ACC Tournament quarterfinal matchup with either Georgia Tech, Louisville, or Virginia. But first they need to spend at least a little time savoring this victory.

Box Score

Hubert Davis postgame press conference

Players postgame press conference

RJ Davis

Armando Bacot

Remember to check in for Quick Hitters after every North Carolina basketball game. Next up is the ACC Tournament at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. Carolina has a double-bye and will play either Virginia, Louisville, or Georgia Tech on Thursday, March 10. Tip is at 9:30pm ET on ESPN or ESPN2.