If you’re looking for the 10,000 foot view, then no, the seventh-ranked team shouldn’t be able to beat the third-ranked team on the third-ranked team’s home court, especially when the third-ranked team is laser-focused after losing a game it thought it should have won just a few days earlier.
If you’re looking for the totally unbiased viewpoint, North Carolina was simply better than Duke tonight, not a lot better but better.
If you’re looking for reassurance, lot of basketball left to be played. But not as much as you might think. It is February and this was not a good way to start a crucial month.
If you’re looking for tough love, Duke has a lot to clean-up.
Starting with that Duke defense that was supposed to be so elite.
Elite defenses do not give up 93 points, which was nine more than Duke put up in the latest battle of the blues.
I think most of us would have taken 84 points going into the game. Duke did a number of things well. The Blue Devils had three players score at least 20 points, Jared McCain with 23, Kyle Filipowski with 22, Jeremy Roach with 20. Duke battled the bigger Tar Heels to a draw on the boards, 34 to 35, with McCain grabbing 11. Duke held R.J. Davis to a manageable 17 points.
But Duke could only force five turnovers, while committing 11, lost the free-throw war decisively and somehow could never figure out to guard Harrison Ingram, who hit 5 of 9 from beyond the arc on the way to 21 points. Duke couldn’t even find Ingram much of the time. And Armando Bacot, the man who won’t go away, dominated inside, with 25 points and 10 rebounds.
Did I mention that Duke had all of eight assists on 35 made field goals?
Carolina consistently won the so-called 50-50 balls and turned them into transition points.
“The main story for me was the loose balls,” Jon Scheyer summed up. “As you look throughout the game they were hungrier to get them. And it turned into--I’ll have to go back and watch the film to see--but I bet 15, maybe 20 points.”
Easy baskets.
McCain agreed.
“They out-competed us for sure. They got those 50-50 balls and it translated. It felt like they hit a 3 every time we didn’t get a loose ball.”
Duke’s only lead was 2-0 and the last tie was at 22-22 after Roach knocked down a triple.
At this point this looked like a classic that might go down to the buzzer, like so many Duke-Carolina games.
Duke didn’t hold up its end of the bargain.
Duke was still in it, down 31-28 after a McCain lay-up. But Ingram hit a 3, Elliott Cadeau scored four quick points and Duke was holding on, down by 10. McCain scored five straight but the home team closed the half on a 7-2 run, another Ingram bomb and two Bacot baskets.
It was 45-35 at the half.
It might be dismissive to say the teams traded baskets in the second half because Duke had its chances. But Duke needed a hot start coming out of the locker room and they didn’t get it. Ingram hit a 3 to make it 50-38, another to make it 55-44 and a two-pointer to make it 63-48.
Duke played well enough after that to keep if from becoming a blow-out but simply couldn’t string together enough stops to climb out of the hole.
Without putting too fine a point on it, give up 93 points on the road to a top-five team and you’re likely coming home with an L.
“I just wasn’t happy with the way we competed,” Scheyer said. “That’s disappointing for me. You can play really well and compete your butt off and still lose to them. Because they’re a really good team. But we didn’t compete to the level that you need to to beat this team tonight.”
Duke hasn’t finished the half strong in multiple games this season. We need to clean that up. I thought the pace was too fast. Carolina was so good in transition. Ingram killed us.