CHAPEL HILL — When Duke inbounded the ball clinging to a two-point lead with 36.8 seconds left Sunday, North Carolina head coach Roy Williams had already instructed his players to foul.
They didn’t have to.
Daniel Ewing broke the Tar Heel press, but he lost control of the ball near center court, letting loose a chaotic scrum that North Carolina emerged from with the ball.
Rather than having the chance to run out the clock, the Blue Devils, who had witnessed a nine-point lead vanish in just three minutes, were back on their heels, desperately trying to hold off North Carolina.
After being fouled on the next play, UNC point guard Raymond Felton sank his first free throw, but then his game-tying attempt ricocheted off the back iron. Another frenzied battle for the ball left it in the hands of Tar Heel freshman Marvin Williams, who banked in the putback and was fouled, sending UNC back to the line to complete a four-point possession.
J.J. Redick’s final three rattled in and out and a Ewing jumper fell short, sending the Dean Dome into pandemonium as North Carolina (26-3, 14-2 in the ACC) celebrated its first outright ACC regular season championship in 12 years with a 75-73 win.
“Somebody told me one time that every game somebody gives in,” Williams said. “But I don’t think either of these teams gave in today. I asked my team to not bring anything back to the locker room, and those last three minutes I promised them we would have a chance.”
The Blue Devils (22-5, 11-5) led 73-64 with 3:07 remaining, but the Tar Heels closed the game on an 11-0 run, during which Ewing turned the ball over twice.
“You’ve got to have the mentality to bear down,” junior Lee Melchionni said. “We shot one free throw in the last three minutes with a nine-point lead, and that’s unacceptable. You can’t do that and win a game. We’ve got to take care of the ball and force them to foul us, and we didn’t do that.”
In addition to the Blue Devils’ inefficiencies on the offensive end, they could not control the boards. North Carolina outrebounded Duke 48-30 and repeatedly kept possessions alive, leading to second and third chances.
Junior Sean May grabbed 12 offensive boards on his way to a dominating 26-point, 24-rebound performance.
After trailing 47-41 at the half, Duke’s defense began to settle in and slow the Tar Heel attack, allowing just six points over a 10-minute stretch.
“We played a great second half and put ourselves in a position to win,” freshman DeMarcus Nelson said. “It’s just that the game of basketball is a 40-minute game, 20-minute halves. We played 17 strong minutes, and the last three minutes we kind of gave up—not gave up, but we just played a little sloppy.”
Redick, who scored 17 points on 5-for-7 shooting in the first half, was held scoreless the rest of the way, but Melchionni and Williams picked up the slack.
Melchionni, who was repeatedly left open when his teammates penetrated, made five three-pointers. Shelden Williams bullied around UNC’s pair of Willliamses—Marvin and Jawad—on his way to 22 points.
“Our defense in the second half was terrific and some of our offensive execution, but they made some big plays down the stretch and we didn’t,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “They won, and they deserved it because they did that.”
With the regular season finale complete, the Tar Heels and Blue Devils turn their attention to next weekend’s ACC Tournament, which they enter as the first and third seeds, respectively. Duke’s road to the title game—and a potential rematch with UNC—starts with either Miami or Virginia Friday at 9 p.m.
Until then, however, the Blue Devils will focus on the mistakes that plagued them in the final minutes of Sunday’s heartbreaking defeat.
“I think it’ll linger a little bit,” Shavlik Randolph said of the emotions from the loss. “Obviously we would have liked to come out here and win. But, with the exception of the last few minutes, we were happy with the way we played. We just can’t have let-ups like that in the final moments of the game.”
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