To the casual viewer, something may seem unusual about tonight’s matchup between No. 8 Duke (19-4, 7-2 in the ACC) and North Carolina.
Yes, the heated rivals will once again renew their rivalry in what is sure to be a hostile Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill at 9 p.m., and it will still be a battle between royal and baby blue. But unlike most years, something will be absent—an Associated Press Top 25 ranking beside the Tar Heel logo on the scoreboard.
Just don’t mention that to any of the Blue Devils.
Indeed, Duke is preparing for this contest against North Carolina (13-10, 2-6) just as it would any other, despite the Tar Heels’ unforeseen and uncharacteristic struggles this year.
“It doesn’t make the game more or less important for us. Despite what they’re ranked or if they are ranked, they’re a really talented team,” senior Jon Scheyer said of his rival’s subpar performance this season. “It’s obviously going to be a really tough game, and it’s a big game for us.”
But if fans’ expectations for a victory don’t raise the Blue Devils’ blood pressure, their recent failures against North Carolina might. Duke was swept by Tyler Hansbrough and the Tar Heels last season, and has lost five of its six five against Roy Williams’s squad.
Still, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski maintains that his team has to view this game not just as a normal Duke-North Carolina matchup, but also just as another game in general.
“I don’t know if there could ever be more pressure on Duke playing any game,” Krzyzewski said. “There’s pressure on us as much as any team in the country to perform well because of the high visibility that we have. It’s heightened in a game against North Carolina because they have that similar expectation and then the basketball world watches.”
One difference between this year’s team and previous incarnations that faltered against the Tar Heels is the Blue Devils’ size down low. Duke is averaging more than 39 rebounds a game and has four players—Kyle Singler, Brian Zoubek, Miles Plumlee, and Lance Thomas—averaging more than 4.9 boards per game. In contrast, the Blue Devils averaged only 36.4 rebounds per game last season, and were outrebounded in both contests against North Carolina.
What’s more, Duke has found a surprising amount of scoring from the post. The elder Plumlee has taken advantage of his increased minutes as a sophomore, averaging 6.5 points per game. Additionally, Zoubek and Thomas both average more than five points per game, and freshman Mason Plumlee has shown flashes of brilliance on the offensive end, despite his inconsistency.
“I think overall the big guys as a group have done a really good job, and they can get better,” Krzyzewski said. “[Thomas] is one of the best defenders in the country…. [Brian] has had a really good workmanlike year.”
However, anyone who has followed Duke knows that a majority of the team’s scoring will come from its big three of Singler, Scheyer and Nolan Smith. The group is averaging more than 53 points per game, making it the top-scoring trio in the country.
Recently, though, the burden on the three S’s has been exacerbated by the disappearance of freshman Andre Dawkins from the rotation. All three average more than 35 minutes a game, and in the team’s last two contests the trio has missed only six of a possible 240 minutes on the court.
Still, Krzyzewski remains confident in the conditioning of his stars, and plans to use them in a similar fashion against the Tar Heels.
“I don’t think [their minutes] are so unusual,” he said. “A player wants to play all the time.”
But if the Blue Devils are to claim a road victory in this heated rivalry, they know that the entire team will have to perform, even with North Carolina’s difficulties of late.
“You see them struggling, and we don’t want to be the team that they get started on,” Zoubek said. “This means a lot to us too, especially the senior class, because… they’ve gotten the better of us the past couple years and we really want to go at them.”
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