Dean Dome domination

At halftime in Saturday’s battle for the ACC title in Chapel Hill, the Blue Devils looked to be in a position similar to the last time they faced North Carolina. After going into the locker room down by 12, Duke even came out and started the second half on a 7-0 run to cut the deficit to 51-46.

But instead of building on their initial second-half momentum, the No. 4 Blue Devils continued to miss open shots and suffer from untimely defensive lapses on their way to an 81-67 loss to No. 13 North Carolina. The win gave North Carolina the ACC regular season championship, sparking the students to rush the court and head coach Roy Williams to cut down the nets.

As much as the offensive woes jump off the stat sheet—Seth Curry, for example, hit six 3-pointers while the rest of the team was a combined 0-for-16—it was the defensive struggles that the Blue Devils were most upset about in the locker room.

“When we give up 51 points in the first half, it’s all about defense,” senior Nolan Smith said. “No team in the country is that talented offensively to score that on anybody, especially a team that prides itself on defense. Ours just was nonexistent. We gave up 51 points, and that just shot us in the foot.”

“[Marshall] was big-time, to say the least,” North Carolina head coach Roy Williams said after the game. “He’s not the most athletic guy in the world, but from the shoulders up, it’s hard to imagine anyone who thinks better than he does.”

Williams highlighted a play in the second half that showcased Marshall’s ability to find holes in the Blue Devil defense. With the Tar Heels up 60-52 with 12 minutes left in the game, Marshall stood with the ball on the left wing. He fired a bullet pass to Tyler Zeller, who was standing on the right block next to Ryan Kelly. He caught the ball, paused and calmly laid the ball over Kelly into the basket to extend North Carolina’s lead back to double digits.

Even though Duke (27-4, 13-3) was down by as few as six points with 10:55 left in the game, the Blue Devils were never able to mount a serious charge. Smith and Curry, who combined to score 50 of the Blue Devils’ 67 points, generated almost all of Duke’s offense. The duo has scored 90 out of 117 total points against the Tar Heels dating back to the start of the second half of the first matchup between the two teams in Cameron.

Kyle Singler, who has been Duke’s second scoring option for most of the season, went just 3-of-14 from the floor, including 0-of-5 from behind the arc, for eight points despite playing all 40 minutes.

“He’s just not shot well in this last month,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said of Singler.

Singler wasn’t the only one wearing a Duke uniform who struggled to hit shots. On his birthday, Mason Plumlee went 0-for-4 from the field and fouled out with 5:22 remaining. Ryan Kelly missed several wide-open 3-point shots and finished the game 1-for-7 from the field, with all six misses coming from behind the arc.

“Our goal at the beginning of the season is to win championships,” Kelly said. “It’s very disappointing in a championship game how I played and how we played as a team.”

Even though North Carolina won the regular season ACC championship, Duke still has the opportunity to win the conference championship and, of course, defend their NCAA title.

“This is a big game,” Krzyzewski said. “But the biggest games are going to be played in about a week and a half or two weeks. Those are the biggest games.”