And one: Ryan’s elite performance too much for No. 9 Duke men’s basketball in loss to North Carolina

After each Duke men's basketball game this season, check back here for the Player of the Game and more. The Blue Devils fell to North Carolina in the final ACC regular-season matchup, with the Tar Heels clinching the conference title in the process. The Blue Zone analyzes the 84-79 defeat:

One player: Cormac Ryan

Just as Stanford transfer Harrison Ingram was pivotal for North Carolina’s victory in the first Tobacco Road rivalry game this season, another transfer made his mark for the Tar Heels during the second one at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Cormac Ryan, who transferred from Notre Dame to Chapel Hill, recorded what could only be considered as his legacy game. The graduate guard from New York scored a season-high 31 points against Duke, shattering his own records of field goals and free throws made as a Tar Heel. This included an incredible 6-of-8 shooting from behind the arc, three of which were made in the first four minutes of the game to put North Carolina up eleven points. Ryan’s heroics forced the Blue Devils to play catch-up for the entire game. Indeed, the graduate guard’s confidence allowed him to respond to every Duke play with more points of his own, such that the Tar Heels never lost the lead. Ryan’s performance was simply unbelievable, as he capped it off with a 90% free-throw percentage and two steals to cement his status in a storied rivalry.

One word: Resilience

Despite the fact that the Blue Devils never took the lead for the entire game, the team did show a resilient mentality after overcoming a big deficit, even being down 15 points at one stage. Indeed, Duke went on a scoring run early during the second half, with sophomore center Kyle Filipowski scoring eight consecutive points right after the break. The Blue Devils managed to miraculously cut the disadvantage to a mere single point after an unanswered Jeremy Roach trey, sending the whole stadium into an absolute frenzy. But North Carolina came back soon after to halt the impending charge, rebuilding its lead back to double digits in just five minutes of play. Nevertheless, Duke persevered, holding on until the very last minute to be within just three points of the Tar Heels’ tally, ultimately losing by five. Should the Blue Devils continue to show such resilience in postseason games, they could very well run deep into the tournaments. 

One stat: 43.3% field-goal percentage

Compared to North Carolina’s 50% field-goal percentage, Duke’s shooting on the night seemed inefficient for a team whose strength was in offensive outputs. In particular, Roach had a nightmare of a game, as he only shot 3-for-12. The senior captain was not the only one struggling to score though, as Filipowski only managed four points in the first half and missed five shots. Sophomore forward Mark Mitchell and graduate center Ryan Young put up merely three points between them despite having played for about 20 minutes each. On a night where the Blue Devils kept on conceding 3-pointers, Duke could not produce to the same extent on the other end of the court, missing 14 of its 23 attempts from deep. Moreover, the Tar Heels’ bench also outperformed Duke’s, putting up 14 points to the home team’s seven, which all came from freshman forward TJ Power. All in all, the Blue Devils must be more consistent at scoring in the upcoming ACC tournament in Washington next week.