CHAPEL HILL — Had Saturday ended how most inside the Dean E. Smith Center hoped, North Carolina would have quite the catalogue of moments to say, “That was when we won it.”
When RJ Davis curled into the paint and hit a fadeaway from the free-throw line with Mason Gillis’ hand in his face to cut a 15-point deficit to one. When Davis nailed a three out of halftime to tie it. When Jae’Lyn Withers took a chance on a wide-open look from deep to hand the Tar Heels their first lead. When Ven-Allen Lubin held back Cooper Flagg with his chest and laid the ball off the backboard to bring that lead to seven and Ian Jackson dusted Flagg at midcourt, euro-stepping Tyrese Proctor to keep their buffer at a healthy six.
The place was a beehive for all of those moments, buzzing with the mix of disbelief, satisfaction and sheer joy that only comes with a rivalry win. Except that win never came.
Instead, Duke ripped off runs of 12-0, 10-3 and 7-2 to smoke out the hive. Fans slumped back into their seats or left the arena altogether, livening up again only to applaud as Davis subbed out for the final time in his career at home.
That’s what made Saturday’s 82-69 win so remarkable for the Blue Devils. It wasn’t the grand, season-saving spectacle the Tar Heels hoped for, needed and often threatened to deliver, but another comfortable Duke win in a sea of 27 others. A garnish on the dish rather than the dish itself.
The routine, business-like way the Blue Devils went about leading then battling back from a deficit to win a game of such lopsided stakes is impressive. More than that, it’s what the best teams Duke has ever produced have been able to do and what puts this year’s crop in their esteemed company.
“Once you get into March, the meaning of it can't be just about wanting it more because the team you play wants it a lot,” head coach Jon Scheyer said postgame. “And so obviously you have to make sure your competitiveness is at a certain level, your fight’s at a certain level. But it also comes down to having great focus and really not trying to do anything differently.”
There were lapses. A 14-6 turnover battle victory for the Tar Heels meant the home team had plenty of opportunities to break in transition and punish the Blue Devils for their carelessness, which they did for 16 points. Khaman Maluach was embargoed from scoring for what felt like the whole game by an improved North Carolina frontcourt. Flagg’s early trio of fouls that relegated him to the bench for most of the first half was another potential bogey, depriving Duke of its best defender and shot-maker.
But none of these faults dealt a killing blow.
Instead of stalling on offense, the Blue Devils turned their focus to the guard trio of Proctor, Kon Knueppel and Sion James to arrow North Carolina from outside, be it the former pair’s 3-point barrage or the latter’s ability to finish through contact. Maluach was an enormous help on the boards despite his lack of scoring and Flagg, upon his return, didn’t get a single foul in the second half and filled the stat sheet with nine rebounds, six assists and four blocks.
“Mason stepping in, Isaiah (Evans), and then I thought Sion, Kon and Tyrese the whole night were just studs,” Scheyer said. “I thought they just had a great look about them the whole way.”
It was while trailing that Duke actually played its best basketball of the night, often through its role players. No stretch better exemplified this than in the midst of that 12-0 run following Jackson’s euro.
The Blue Devil defense forced the Tar Heels into three costly plays, each more exasperated than the last. The first resulted from a forced error: a Davis pass that bounced off Lubin under pressure from Caleb Foster, which turned into a Knueppel layup. The second came from excellent positioning: a Davis hook pass in the post that fell straight into James’ hands, sending Foster forward for a layup. The third was the dagger: a leaping attempt by Withers to stop the ball from going out of bounds that Knueppel picked off and dumped to Flagg, who eventually found Maliq Brown for a wide-open dunk.
Brown hung from the rim with one hand after that play. The Duke bench flexed and screamed in response, then stormed the floor as North Carolina called a timeout.
As all of Knueppel, James, Flagg and Scheyer said after the buzzer, it was just about “weathering the storm.”
Duke’s ability to respond to setbacks has been one of its more critiqued traits this season — late-game slips, more than once literal, against Clemson, Kentucky and Kansas explain why — but it handled the barrage with aplomb in Chapel Hill. Not only that, it responded with an even more ferocious barrage of its own, including a shock pair of Brown threes, a euro from James after a diving Foster steal and a Flagg slam straight through the Tar Heels’ gut.
The word “historic” shouldn’t be floated lightly. But the way these Blue Devils have dismantled most of their opponents, established a standard of excellence on both sides of the ball and win not one, but two primetime rivalry games comfortably is, unquestionably, historic.
“We understood the value of this game for both teams,” Scheyer said. “We didn't want to be the hunted. Sometimes when you talk too much about what a team is trying to do, you become the hunted. And the thing we've done a great job of is being the hunters.”
Saturday wasn’t a game Duke had to win to secure its place in the NCAA Tournament. It wasn’t a game it had to win because it was on a losing streak or dropped the first rivalry matchup. In contrast to the Tar Heels, who staked their season on beating their rival, Saturday was just another game Duke wanted to, and found a way to, win.
“The obstacle is the way for us,” Scheyer said through a grin, a blue rubber bracelet emblazoned with the same words peeking through his sleeve. “We've embraced that.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.
Andrew Long is a Trinity senior and recruitment/social chair of The Chronicle's 120th volume. He was previously sports editor for Volume 119.