Last time, and I mean the last time, head coach Mike Krzyzewski’s Blue Devils made the trip to Chapel Hill, they left having inflicted the biggest defeat the Tar Heels had endured at Duke’s hand since March of 2010.
On that fateful evening at the Dean Dome—aside from a picture taken of Krzyzewski, assistant head coach Jon Scheyer, North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis and the retired Roy Williams—it was business as usual. Duke was unsurprisingly greeted by a cacophony of boos and jeers from a packed house of light blue, but after the Blue Devils stormed to an 11-2 lead within three minutes, it got quiet real quick.
Krzyzewski’s final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium will be anything but quiet. Amid speculation about which former players or celebrities will be in attendance and the arrival of ESPN College Gameday to Durham, it’s easy to forget there’s still a full 40-minute game of basketball on the docket.
And it’s one Duke is going to dominate.
As of Friday afternoon, the Blue Devils are 11.5-point favorites in this game–already a ridiculous figure–but I’m going to stick my neck out there and predict the scoreline will be even more one-sided when the dust settles. A point differential of 15, 20, even higher; I don’t know and won’t try to manifest a number, but I stand by the take.
The stats stand by it too.
Duke is on a seven-game unbeaten run, five of which were by double digits. In the Blue Devils’ two most recent outings, trips to Syracuse and Pittsburgh, they won by a combined 55 points. Paolo Banchero hit 21 in both of those, AJ Griffin has been pumping out double-digit scoring games like it’s nobody’s business with seven consecutive while maintaining a 48.7% mark from deep and Mark Williams remains a force, coming off a career-high 28-point game against Syracuse. That’s not even to mention Trevor Keels, Wendell Moore Jr., or Jeremy Roach.
Among that trio, Keels also hit a career high last week against Pittsburgh with 27 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field. Moore is coming off a 13 point game in the Steel City compounded with six rebounds and five assists, and Roach, though in somewhat of a statistical slump, has still been immensely influential as a play caller and assist machine.
North Carolina’s had a decent last couple weeks of its own, entering Saturday on a four-game victorious streak, though it has looked shaky in each. Its make-or-break contest against a struggling and patchy Orange team took until overtime to decide, it labored against Louisville and Virginia Tech squads that likely won’t make the NCAA tournament and it was embarrassed by nine at home Feb. 16 by the same Pittsburgh team Duke squashed by 30.
Caleb Love, Armando Bacot and Brady Manek all have it in them to make things interesting for the Blue Devils, but it just feels like this Duke team is too hot to drop right now. Its stars are shining and its train is chugging, and I haven’t even talked about the massive elephant in the room.
It’s Krzyzewski’s last game at Cameron. Ever.
There is no bigger motivator for a team, for a fanbase or for that legendary coach. The whole evening is already going to be spectacular and the game will no doubt match, either by being a “good” and close game or by being an absolute pummeling by Duke.
Out of stats, game trends, the ever-dreaded sports jargon that is “momentum” and maybe a little bit of optimism, I’m going to bank on the latter.
It’s too grand a stage not to.
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Andrew Long is a Trinity senior and recruitment/social chair of The Chronicle's 120th volume. He was previously sports editor for Volume 119.