Next up is the rematch with UNC, as the Tar Heels take the short trip (11 miles, not the 8 traditionally promoted) to Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Last time, of course, UNC beat the Blue Devils on a last-second three by Seth Trimble that Tar Heel fans will talk about for a long time.
That game was on February 7th, and a lot has happened between then and now.
Most obviously, Caleb Wilson has been out with a wrist injury. It’s not clear if he’ll be back Saturday, but he may well be.
Since that loss, Duke has
hit a different level, outscoring seven opponents, 576-406, or by 170 points. That’s 24.2 per game, incidentally.
And in those seven games, Duke held opponents to 52-99 (26.1%) from behind the line and 147-401 (36.7%) overall.
For the season, the Blue Devils held opponents to 29.9% from deep and 38.7% overall. At this point, KenPom has Duke’s adjusted defensive efficiency at 88.0. The next ACC team is Virginia at #19; UNC comes in at #28.
On the other end of the court, Duke is #4 in adjusted offensive efficiency. UNC, again, is #28.
That’s all cool, but it shows long-term trends, strengths and weaknesses. It somewhat predicts patterns perhaps, but it can’t predict much in a particular game.
None of this predicted Pat Ngongba fouling out in 16 minutes, or Maliq Brown picking up four.
And more to the point, only a fool would try to predict a Duke-UNC game from statistics.
You certainly can try to predict from greatness. You’d have done well if you bet on Michael Jordan, Christian Laettner, Zion Williamson, or Cooper Flagg.
What you can’t really predict is when someone unexpected steps up. Just look back and remember: Fred Lind. Robby West. Dante Calabria. Jeff Capel. Chris Duhon. Austin Rivers. Wendell Moore. Seth Trimble.
You probably could put together a list of your own in short order.
The emotional intensity of the rivalry is the driving force, which is why a guy like Lind, who was a career reserve, is still remembered for his 1968 heroics.
Duke is obviously the favorite, as you would expect from the #1 team in the land and as noted above, the Devils have played very well lately.
Cameron Boozer has played well enough for a lot of people to say not just that he’s the best player in the country, but that he’s having the best year a Duke freshman has ever had.
This is what former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told Jeff Goodman this week, and that takes in all of these players: Grant Hill, Jabari Parker, Jahlil Okafor, Tyus Jones, Marvin Bagley, Wendell Carter, Zion Williamson, Paolo Banchero, Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel.
Again, we’re sure you could add more names to that list, but you get the point. Boozer is exceptional. We think of him as sort of a smaller version of Tim Duncan: he just grinds away with superb fundamentals, brilliant footwork, brute strength and immense basketball intelligence.
Yet he can’t win alone. He’s gotten great support from Pat Ngongba and Maliq Brown. Between the three of them, Duke gets tremendous offense, three great passers and lethal interior defense.
There was a time this year when people were uncertain about Duke’s perimeter, but that seems to be over. Isaiah Evans has provided tremendous support offensively, especially recently. He’s shot well, but he’s also driven to the basket and passed well, too. And his defense is vastly improved since last year. He’s become an asset in almost any situation.
Dame Sarr has learned to use his speed and energy to dominate ballhandlers and anyone else he guards. There have been a couple of times this season where we watched him just run past defenders, especially in the open court. His end-to-end speed is amazing, and he’s learning to harness it.
Then Caleb Foster has become a vastly different player. Here’s a stat you probably didn’t catch: Foster has had more than two turnovers in a game just once this season, against Arkansas. In his last seven games, Foster has had just five. In those same games, he’s had 29 assists.
He’s not a classic point guard, but so what? He takes great care of the ball, he’s distributing it well, and he’s also scoring and rebounding well.
Toss in the improved play of Nik Khamenia, Cayden Boozer and Darren Harris, and this team is very different from the one we saw at UNC.
Then again, so is UNC.
They’ve survived the loss of Wilson pretty well. Henri Veesaar has gotten a lot more attention and his stats have suffered, but Jarin Stevenson and Zayden High have both stepped up.
Seth Trimble has had some real ups and downs, but emotion being what it is, he’ll be closer to up than down in Cameron. Then Derek Dixon has come along nicely at point guard. Hubert Davis tried Kyan Evans, but that didn’t work in the long run. He also experimented with starting Jaydon Young, but that didn’t work, either.
Dixon has solved a lot of problems, and he presents one too: a lot of the guys that Sarr has stifled are smaller guards. At 6-5, Dixon won’t have that problem.
Luka Bogavac has also come on. He had a stretch earlier in the season where he scored 15, 2, 2, 15, 0, 8 and 0. At times he still falls off a bit, but in the last six games, Bogavac has scored 15, 9, 13, 12, 5, and 20.
And then there’s the question of Wilson and whether he will play.
Boozer has had the better year and it’s not close, but only a fool would dismiss Wilson’s immense talent. He had a lot to do with Ngongba’s and Brown’s foul trouble in Chapel Hill.
If he plays, things change a lot. Our guess is that he will. Reportedly, the cast is off, and he’s been doing everything except full contact stuff. It sounds like it’s just a question of the medical staff signing off on his return.
Given the nature of the rivalry, we wouldn’t presume to make a prediction. We will note this, though. Of UNC’s players, although Henri Veesaar, with Arizona, and Young, with Virginia Tech, have been in Cameron before, only Seth Trimble has participated in this rivalry.
And while the Smith Center has its moments, even UNC players have confessed over the years that they appreciate the energy of Cameron. And the only game that has really approached what happens when UNC comes calling was when Michigan’s Fab Five came in 1992, needing to have their attitudes adjusted somewhat.
It’s not like anywhere else, and for this one, the atmosphere is going to be absolutely off the charts. How UNC handles that pressure will be critical.
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