Welcome to one of the best days of the year.
Yeah, Christmas is great, and so is Super Bowl Sunday and the first two days of the NCAA Tournament, and the Duke-UNC game in Cameron is the most anticipated contest of the regular season. But the game in Chapel Hill is right up there.
For Blue Devil fans, this one is especially promising. As you know, North Carolina has won five of the past six rivalry meetings. And as you also know—but really, do you ever get sick of hearing it?—the Tar Heels have been awful lately, losing six of their last seven and seven of their last nine. If Duke is going to reverse the recent trend in this series, this seems like the perfect time to do it. The Blue Devils are ranked in the top 10, are first in the ACC and have rebounded nicely from a few bad January losses.
But don’t expect a blowout at the Dean Dome tonight.
Make no mistake: Duke is the better team, and I expect it to win. But the gap between the Blue Devils and the Tar Heels may not be as big as you think. North Carolina, after all, has beaten Michigan State and Ohio State (with Evan Turner), and it narrowly lost to Kentucky. You could point out that those games all took place before the New Year, and you would be right. But the point is, the Tar Heels have the ability to compete with the nation’s top teams.
(Still don’t believe me? Coach K: “They’re very talented and deep.” Jon Scheyer: “They’re a young team, but they have a lot of talent.” Nolan Smith: “They have a very talented team… and it’s very surprising to me [that they’re struggling].” Kyle Singler: “They have a lot of talent…. They can definitely beat anyone.”)
So in case you missed it, Carolina has talent. What it doesn’t have is experience, the ability to hold onto the ball, and lately, any sign of a pulse. There is no reason this team should lose to Maryland by 21 or to Virginia by 15 (at home!), but that’s exactly what has happened in two of its last three games.
It won’t happen tonight. You can be sure of that.
The Tar Heels need this game, not just because it might save them from what looks like a sure NIT season but because this rivalry is kind of a big deal. A win wouldn’t eliminate UNC’s seven losses this calendar year, but beating Duke might make those struggles palatable.
“It’s different from any game that we play,” senior forward Lance Thomas said Monday. “We’re both playing like we’re [Nos.] 1 and 2 in the country. That’s what the game’s going to be like on Wednesday. Whatever they’re doing, as far as how they’re playing, that has no bearing on how we’re going to go over there and play.”
Normally, I don’t buy into the argument that a team is going to win because it needs a victory more than its opponent does. I tend to favor factors like talent, recent performance and home court. Plus, the opponent is, you know, trying to win the game, too.
And in Duke’s case, this game is far from meaningless. There is obviously the rivalry component, but in the context of the entire season, the Blue Devils are still trying to figure out how to win on the road. As gutsy as Saturday’s win at Boston College was, it only moved Duke to 2-4 away from home, and it should never have gone down to the wire. It’s entirely possible that the game was so close because the Blue Devils were playing their second game in three days, but Singler was still talking Monday about stringing together a few road wins to turn that record around. That doesn’t sound like a team that thinks it has everything completely figured out.
The key comparison isn’t whether North Carolina wants to win more than Duke. That’s going to be a wash. It’s whether the Tar Heels want to win more than they did against Maryland and Virginia, and I would be shocked if they don’t.
That will help UNC keep the game close, but I still think those other factors—turnovers and inexperience—will prove too much for the Tar Heels to overcome.
If they don’t, I may have to start reevaluating whether this day is really as great as I think it is.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.