Maybe it was the prodding of coach Mike Krzyzewski. Maybe it was the barking of senior guard Steve Wojciechowski. Maybe it was a collapse by North Carolina.
Or maybe it was the thought of all that foam going to waste.
Whatever the reason, the top-ranked men's basketball team awoke Saturday with just over 11 1/2 minutes left in its showdown with No. 3 UNC, and the result was unforgettable. The Blue Devils (27-2, 15-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) shut down Carolina All-American Antawn Jamison, dominated the paint and turned a 64-47 deficit into a 77-75 win at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
The triumph gave Duke sole possession of the ACC regular-season title for the second straight year and Krzyzewski his 500th coaching victory.
"The last 11 1/2 minutes of the game were the best," Krzyzewski said. "I mean, I don't know how you get any better."
For the first 28 minutes, it seemed as though the Tar Heels (27-3, 13-3) couldn't get any better. They made 21 of their first 33 field-goal attempts (63.6 percent), almost exactly the same blistering clip (63.5 percent) as they shot Feb. 5 in pounding Duke 97-73 in Chapel Hill.
Both totals were stark contrasts to the usual Duke defense, which had allowed fewer than 63 points per game entering Saturday's contest.
"I told our team that we play different against North Carolina," Krzyzewski said. "You can say it's man-to-man defense, but it wasn't. It wasn't our defense.
"I just asked them to be themselves throughout the whole game."
The Blue Devils apparently listened. Although the Tar Heels connected on 10 of 16 field-goal attempts to start the second half, they went cold thereafter. They missed their next five shots, while on the other end, Duke scored on six of seven possessions.
When Trajan Langdon canned a 19-foot jumper with 8:02 to go, the deficit was 68-59 and the Tar Heels had to burn a timeout. Point guard Steve Wojciechowski reminded his teammates to play for the win, not just to make the score close.
They did exactly that, as freshman center Elton Brand added a turnaround jumper and a putback layup after the timeout to cap a 16-4 Duke run in which he scored 10 points.
"He's unbelievable," Wojciechowski said of Brand, whose broken foot kept him out of 15 games, including the first Duke-UNC matchup. "If they're going to vote for rookie of the year, they'd better put an asterisk beside it. He's just a big presence, and he gave us a shot in the arm."
Brand didn't score again, but after Ademola Okulaja made a pair of free throws to push UNC's lead back to seven, Brand came through again on the offensive end. He rebounded William Avery's miss and flipped the ball to Avery at the top of the key, where Avery nailed a three-pointer to make the score 70-66.
It was Duke's inside scoring, however, that made the difference Saturday. The Blue Devils shot 25 percent (4 of 16) on two-point attempts in the first half, but countered with an 82-percent clip (18 of 22) inside the arc after intermission.
The Tar Heels, on the other hand, converted only one field goal, a Jamison tip-in, in the final 8:45.
"We got some easy baskets," McLeod said. "That's what gave them the big lead in the first half-they were getting a lot of layups and transition baskets. And in the second half, those were the baskets that we got."
Invisible on both ends was Jamison, who touched the ball just twice in the final 11 1/2 minutes-both on offensive rebounds-and looked helpless trying to defend Brand and McLeod.
"I don't know what happened," Jamison said. "It was frustrating because you play so hard throughout the whole game and then the last seven or eight minutes you don't touch the ball, and it hurts a lot more."
Jamison looked most helpless on Duke's biggest possession, with the score tied and less than two minutes left. He watched as Chris Carrawell corralled the long carom of Langdon's missed three-point attempt, and when the Blue Devils swung the ball to McLeod just above the free-throw line, Jamison became little more than a spectator.
As the All-American stood in the low post, McLeod swooped past him and scooped in the game-winning layup.
"When I got the ball at the high post, I saw Trajan on the wing," McLeod said. "The first thing I thought was to drive and kick to Trajan for a three-point shot.
"But when the defense didn't come down, sometimes you have to be an instinctive player.... I knew I was either going to get fouled or I was going to make the basket."
McLeod forced a held ball on Carolina's next possession, tying up Vince Carter to force a turnover.
The Blue Devils did not score, though, and after McLeod forced another held ball on the other end, the Heels had one last chance with 9.5 seconds left. They inbounded to Ed Cota, whose collision with Langdon resulted in a blocking foul against Langdon and sent Cota to the free-throw line with 3.8 seconds left.
Until that point, UNC had made 20 of 24 free-throw attempts. But Cota missed his first shot, and with his team down by two, had to miss his second. Carolina center Brendan Haywood grabbed the high-arching rebound and drew a foul from Brand with 1.2 seconds remaining.
Haywood also missed, and Brand knocked away his second miss to seal the victory.
As the final buzzer sounded, bedlam erupted, with hordes of fans rushing the court. Wojciechowski grabbed Krzyzewski in a bear hug, while most of the Blue Devils danced, hooted and hollered.
"This is a great day for us," Krzyzewski said. "It's really one of the best settings that you could ever have."
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