CHARLOTTE—How do you top a Duke-North Carolina epic, a game that came down to the buzzer with wild swings of momentum and an electric crowd inside the Spectrum Center?
It's easy—play for an ACC tournament title.
The third-seeded Blue Devils will do just that at 8:30 p.m. Saturday when they take on No. 4 seed Florida State, which knocked off top-seeded Virginia 69-59 in the first half of Friday's semifinal doubleheader. Duke eked out an 80-78 win in Tallahassee when the teams met in early January thanks to a Cam Reddish dagger triple just before the final buzzer.
But for more than half of that game, the Blue Devils played without Zion Williamson, who was poked in the eye just before halftime and never returned.
Between Duke's five regular starters, there have been a total of 10 missed games, not including Williamson's early exits vs. the Seminoles and North Carolina as well as Jones' absence for much of the first game against Syracuse. And it remains to be seen whether Marques Bolden will be back by the start of the NCAA tournament—head coach Mike Krzyzewski seemed optimistic late Saturday night, but still unsure whether the junior center will be ready to go.
Maybe these injuries have been a blessing in disguise.
"The thing that we found against good man-to-man offense, Jordan Goldwire has just been sensational on defense," Krzyzewski said. "His athletic ability, and he and Tre out there they put such good pressure on the ball and that takes R.J. and Cameron not having to do that. And then Antonio, that's a little bit of a surprise, but he's had a great attitude and if you find some guys like that, now they have confidence, that's good."
Two months ago, when the Blue Devils visited Florida State (27-6), that certainly wasn't the case. Other than Alex O'Connell's six minutes, just seven men saw action in that game, and 66 of Duke's 80 points came from the freshman trio of Reddish, Williamson and R.J. Barrett.
Saturday night, role players had a massive impact for the Blue Devils—Antonio Vrankovic logged a plus-12 in 10 minutes of action and Goldwire scored on multiple critical layups in addition to playing hard-nosed defense on the Tar Heels' perimeter weapons.
Against the Seminoles, though, Duke is going to need a full team effort as Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton rotates deep into his bench, typically playing at least nine guys for double-digit minutes.
"[We] can’t be satisfied," junior Javin DeLaurier said. "Coach told us all the great teams have got to be hungry.... After 40 minutes, if we play hard, then we can sit back and breathe a little bit before the NCAA tournament starts."
Of course, there's more up for grabs than just a 21st ACC tournament title to add to the trophy case back in Durham. The Blue Devils will very likely be playing for the chance to claim the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament should they win, meaning they would get a favorable road to Minneapolis, first playing in Columbia, S.C., before traveling to Washington for the East Regional.
With a loss, Duke would leave its fate in the hands of the selection committee. Although the Blue Devils are probably locked in as a No. 1 seed, there are still seven teams in the mix for a spot somewhere along that top line, and much remains to be decided in terms of how things will set up for potential Elite Eight and Final Four matchups.
"The way I see it, we got another game tomorrow," Barrett said when asked about whether he thought Duke was a No. 1 seed. "We've got to worry about that first before we can think about anything else."
For all the Blue Devils did well in order to exact their revenge on North Carolina, they were far from perfect. Duke left six points at the free-throw line—including two crucial misses by Barrett in the final 15 seconds—hit on just five of its 20 tries from downtown and surrendered 16 offensive boards, something that could come back to bite the Blue Devils against a Seminole team that features 7-foot-4 Christ Koumadje and 6-foot-10 Mfiondu Kabengele.
"If we want to be a championship-caliber team, we have to do those small things," Jones said. Tonight, we were able to do that, so it was a big step forward for us as a team, and we keep going."
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Twitter: @mpgladstone13
A junior from just outside Philadelphia, Mitchell is probably reminding you how the Eagles won the Super Bowl this year and that the Phillies are definitely on the rebound. Outside of The Chronicle, he majors in Economics, minors in Statistics and is working toward the PJMS certificate, in addition to playing trombone in the Duke University Marching Band. And if you're getting him a sandwich with beef and cheese outside the state of Pennsylvania, you best not call it a "Philly cheesesteak."