This Saturday, UNC will wrap up their regular season with a run of the mill game, as they prepare for the postseason. Just kidding, obviously the season finale means it’s time for the Tar Heels second meeting of the season against Duke.
This year, it’s the Blue Devils’ turn to host the season-ending clash, as UNC will head into Cameron Indoor Stadium. Duke will probably have revenge on its mind, considering how the first meeting in Chapel Hill went. That night, Seth Trimble’s nearly buzzer-beating
three-pointer completed a massive comeback for the Tar Heels, who trailed by double digits for a decent chunk of the game. Now, it’s time for round two.
From a Duke perspective, they have to be pretty pleased about how they responded to the loss in the first game. The Blue Devils have played seven games since Trimble’s three and have won all seven. More impressively, the margin of victories in those games have been 16, 13, 37, 5, 44, 26, and 29. The one close game in there was the five-point win, and that came against Michigan, who is themselves one of the best teams in the country this year.
In those wins, Duke has also kicked their defense up a notch. The most points they’ve allowed in the seven games is 64, which they did twice and won both games by 20+. Additionally, The Michigan game was the only time in which an opposing team has mustered an Offense Rating over 100. UNC’s win was the only time someone has cracked 70 against them since January 10th.
Meanwhile offensively, Duke star Cameron Boozer will likely be trying to put a bow on his case for the National Player of the Year Awards. For the season, he’s averaging 22.6 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 4.0 assists. He got his in the fist UNC game, going for 24 points, so the Tar Heels can still win even if he goes off, but you probably don’t want to let him do that again.
One thing that UNC did very well the first time around was keep Duke off the free throw line. In total, Carolina committed just seven fouls in the game and Duke only attempted six free throws. That’s compared to an average of 22.3 attempts per game for the season. It’s hard to really know what kind of whistle you’ll get in a game before it starts — especially in Cameron — but if UNC can play that cleanly again, they’ll stand a chance.
The big thing to watch from a Carolina perspective in this one will once again be around Caleb Wilson. UNC’s star freshman hasn’t played since the game following the Duke win, having broken his hand against Miami. While he now has the cast off as hand, as of the last update, Hubert Davis has said that he hasn’t bene able to participate in any five-on-five workouts or anything like that. It would be quite difficult for UNC to go into Cameron and win without him, but — as sacrilegious as it feels to say — there are more important games on the horizon. You don’t need to rush him back for his game, even if he does get cleared.
Right now, everything seems to be pointing towards this being a very difficult game for UNC to win. That being said, we’ve already seen them overcome a big deficit in this series this year, so who knows.
