Saturday night in Cameron Indoor Stadium was all about finishing-finishing a senior's career, a turnaround ACC campaign and a dramatic second-half comeback.
But on the season's biggest stage, Duke just couldn't finish.
The Blue Devils went scoreless over the game's final 5:42, and top-ranked North Carolina scored the last 10 points to escape with a 76-68 victory.
Missing its final 11 shots from the field after taking its only lead of the second half at 68-66, Duke had its share of open looks down the stretch. But the Blue Devils simply could not put points on the board.
"We had great looks. You couldn't ask for any better looks down the stretch for us," said senior captain DeMarcus Nelson, who went just 3-of-12 in his last home game. "But it was just a matter of us not making ours and capitalizing and a matter of them capitalizing on theirs.... Tonight, they were better than us."
Duke went to its late-game spread offense after grabbing the lead, but the Blue Devils couldn't convert on three straight possessions to stretch their advantage. Greg Paulus missed two jump shots, and Gerald Henderson missed a dunk attempt that would have pushed the margin to four.
Coming out of the final media timeout, North Carolina regained its once-firm control of the game. Wayne Ellington and Tyler Hansbrough scored on back-to-back possessions for the lead, and a Danny Green dunk with 29 seconds left punctuated the closing spurt.
"To win a game like that, you got to get up by two possessions," Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "It puts game pressure on, and we were never able to put that game pressure on them."
Once that game pressure was placed on the Blue Devils, they couldn't hit enough shots to pull back even. Duke may have been exhausted-from the emotional build-up of Nelson's Senior Night and from its comeback earlier in the half.
Down by as much as 14 early and by 12 in the first minute after intermission, the Blue Devils tied the game on a pair of Jon Scheyer 3-pointers. Duke and North Carolina traded baskets on their next five possessions, the Blue Devils answering each Tar Heels' bucket with one of their own.
In the closing minutes, however, the back-and-forth action transformed into the halfcourt, grind-it-out style more customary in March.
And it was the team in the road blues known for its fast-break offense that made all the necessary plays to pull out the victory.
"Maybe we just tried a little too hard at the end," Krzyzewski said. "That comes with a little more maturity in playing in these kinds of games."
Duke has struggled the last few years to finish down the stretch. The Blue Devils lost their last two regular-season games in 2006 and their last four contests a season ago.
And now this year's squad has split its final six conference games after winning its first 10.
Duke has clearly proven that it can play with anyone in the country this season, but if the Blue Devils want to be the ones cutting down the nets in early April, they need to find the bottom of them at the end of big games.
Saturday night, Duke didn't do that. But the Blue Devils made sure one thing was clear: their season was far from finished.
"We've had a really good year, and we don't feel it's over," Krzyzewski said. "As disappointing as the outcome is, playing in a game like this and being in those situations-whether you hit or miss-is great experience for us. Next time in a big game, after we've been there, we might do better. And we want to play in as many big games as we can."
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