NEW YORK—It was the ultimate role reversal.
A year ago, after Duke fell in Chapel Hill, it was forced to play three games in as many days, knocking off its Tobacco Road rivals to reach the ACC tournament title game.
Saturday night, just six days after a season-ending defeat back in Durham, the Tar Heels got revenge and gave the Blue Devils a taste of their own medicine.
With a 74-69 victory at the Barclays Center, No. 6 seed North Carolina snuck past second-seeded Duke to advance to Saturday night's final and get a shot at top-seeded Virginia. Although the Blue Devils clawed back from an 13-point deficit to take the lead early and nearly climbed out yet another double-digit second-half hole, they will not retain their conference crown.
After a 13-0 run in just more than five minutes made it a one-possession contest with less than 60 ticks to go, Grayson Allen was unable to will his team to victory—on his first chance, the senior was whistled for a charge, and on his second, a heavily contested 3-pointer came up well short.
“We learned a lot here,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “We played two really good games, two really good teams, and we know we can play better. I'm proud of my guys. I thought in the last six minutes they showed an incredible will to win against a very, very good basketball team. We had a chance. We had a chance, but we've got to do that a little bit earlier.”
After the Blue Devils (26-7) trailed by just five at halftime, they hung around as the teams traded baskets for six and a half minutes. But with North Carolina scoring eight of the next 10 points, the Tar Heels (25-9) stretched their lead back to a baker's dozen—matching their largest of the night to that point.
And even after a pair of triples put North Carolina in front by 14, Duke stayed tenacious, looking to chip away at a double-digit deficit just as it did in Durham six days ago.
“If we would have played the way we played to come back and get back into the game in the first half and the first part of the second half, I feel like you wouldn’t even be in that situation,” freshman Marvin Bagley III said. “That just shows what this team can do, and I believe if we can do that all 40 minutes—we’ve been saying that all this whole time, but we will get it. I believe we will.”
With the scoreboard at 72-56 after a jumper from Tar Heel forward Luke Maye, the Blue Devils began their surge. A triple from Allen and a layup by Wendell Carter Jr. plus a pair of free throws by Bagley just after the under-four media timeout cut the North Carolina lead to single digits.
But the Tar Heels looked just about ready to salt the game away with three straight offensive rebounds that would have taken the life out of nearly any other team.
Still, Duke would not lay down. Another Allen trey pulled the Blue Devils within six, and after a crucial stop, Gary Trent Jr. canned a 3-pointer of his own from the top of the key to set up the game’s final fateful sequence.
“We were right there, and when you fight back to bring it that close, you often think back to why you got down in the first place,” Allen said. “For us, we can't get to that position. We just can't let it happen. That's something we need to learn from moving forward is you've got to fight, fight, and you can't get down, because when you play against good teams, it doesn't always work in your favor when you try to come back.
Offensively, the Blue Devils couldn't find much of a groove after halftime. Although Trent led the way with 20 points, they struggled from beyond the arc as a team, shooting only 6-of-23 on 3-pointers.
Turnovers also plagued Duke, as they have on multiple occasions. After point guard Trevon Duval suffered a right ankle injury in the first three minutes, the freshman never really looked the same. Although x-rays were negative and Duval returned to the floor in relatively quick fashion, he wound up with no points and five of the Blue Devils’ 18 turnovers in 30 minutes despite tallying seven more assists.
“I mentally just tried to fight through it," Duval said. “Even if I thought that I couldn’t do anything, I felt that I couldn’t do anything, I just tried to fight through it.”
To say Friday was a slow start for the Blue Devils would be an understatement. After coming out roaring just about 24 hours earlier, Duke mustered only one field goal in the first 10 minutes as it fell behind 18-7.
But an extended Blue Devil run saw Duke crawl its way into the game, as it broke out for a 22-8 spurt to finally grab a 27-26 advantage on a Bagley hook shot over Maye.
Of course, the half didn't end without at least a little drama—in the final minute of the opening stanza, Allen was whistled for a questionable flagrant 1 after a slight hip check sent North Carolina's Garrison Brooks sprawling to the deck.
Whether the officials got the call right or wrong, given the Duke captain’s eventful history, many saw the bump as another intentional act by Allen.
Krzyzewski emphatically suggested otherwise.
“You don't want any foul in a game,” he said. “That was another foul in a game. Do you think that that was the only time someone was hipped in the game? If you look in the low post, that's going on all the time, so it happened at halfcourt, they got it, it's done, and that didn't win or lose the game.”
With the first part of postseason play now in the rearview mirror, the Blue Devils will wait for the NCAA tournament selection committee to reveal their seeding Sunday evening. Duke is still projected by most analysts as a No. 2 seed, but its opening weekend and regional placement could very well hinge on the Tar Heels’ performance Saturday night against Virginia.
Regardless, the Blue Devils know that they have no other choice but to turn the page and look forward to what is to come.
“We’re going [with the goal] to win it all,” Carter said. “We’re going to get back in the gym as soon as possible and recover from this.... Just being in the tournament setting, this is going to prepare us for March Madness, and for us to lose tonight, it just puts another chip on our shoulder that we’ve got to go out and play harder than ever.”
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Twitter: @mpgladstone13
A junior from just outside Philadelphia, Mitchell is probably reminding you how the Eagles won the Super Bowl this year and that the Phillies are definitely on the rebound. Outside of The Chronicle, he majors in Economics, minors in Statistics and is working toward the PJMS certificate, in addition to playing trombone in the Duke University Marching Band. And if you're getting him a sandwich with beef and cheese outside the state of Pennsylvania, you best not call it a "Philly cheesesteak."