No. 14 North Carolina stunned No. 4 Duke 71-68 with a last-second 3-pointer in Chapel Hill on Saturday to complete its biggest comeback against the rival Blue Devils in 25 years. UNC trailed by as many as thirteen points in the first half and at several points in the second half (even with just six minutes left) it looked like Duke had a firm grip on the game.
Until it didn’t.
UNC remained persistent and pulled away little by little before chasing Duke thanks to a 3-pointer in the corner by Seth Trimble with 0.4 seconds left. Duke’s last-ditch effort to force overtime ended with a failed inbounds that did not result in a shot attempt.
Here’s how the Tar Heels, who lost all three games against Duke last season and entered the game 4-6 under fifth-year coach Hubert Davis, earned a much-needed win to put back one of the best rivalries in sports.
All Duke asked
Just over six minutes into the game, the Blue Devils opened an 18-5 lead to silence the raucous crowd at the Dean Smith Center. During that span, five different Duke players scored points — and that it didn’t including top scorer Cameron Boozer.
UNC closed the gap to 22-20 thanks to a 15-2 run that got the crowd back into it. But Duke regained the momentum going into halftime with an impressive 19-9 run of its own in the final eight minutes of the first half. Going into the second half they led 41-29. That was one point short of the largest lead of the match.
Caleb Wilson keeps UNC afloat
UNC’s supporting cast around star forward Caleb Wilson has been stellar all season. But that was not the case in the first half. Wilson accounted for 17 of the team’s 29 points in the first half. The rest of the Tar Heels shot a dismal 4 of 20 from the field.
Wilson, however, was spectacular. So spectacular that UNC’s 12-point deficit somehow felt miraculous because it was no more than 20 points. He hit tough mid-range fadeaway after tough mid-range fadeaway, reliably hitting his spot on the field.
Wilson led all scorers at halftime. Only one other UNC player made more than two field goals in the first twenty minutes.
“Caleb kept us going in the first half,” Davis said after the game.
“We kept fighting. We were down. We weren’t in the fight… We kept hanging in there… as we continued to take the lead, our confidence got better, our stops got better, our execution got better. And Henri stepped up, his ability to dominate points in the paint was tremendous. Caleb kept us in it.”
Veesaar comes to life
UNC’s second leading scorer, Henri Veesaar, scored zero points on 0-for-2 shooting in the first half. A virtual no-show.
Veesaar in the second half: team-high 13 points on 6-for-7 shooting, nine rebounds, one assist, one block.
UNC went as Veesaar went in both halves – and Veesaar went from a stone-cold zero to a full-fledged flamethrower. None of his buckets were more critical than the three he hit just at 1:40 of the second half to tie things up. It lifted the crowd and seemed to breathe new life into a once-dead UNC team.
“Henri stepped up,” Davis said after the game. “I mean, he had zero rebounds in the first half and then a double-double in the second half. His ability to dominate points in the paint was huge for us.”
UNC gets a key stop at a critical moment
Duke didn’t score a single point in the final 2:25, going 0-for-3 with two missed layups and failing to make a shot as time expired.
That’s partly due to Duke’s inability to convert, but UNC deserves credit for its timely stops. The final score was perhaps the biggest, as the Tar Heels defense stood tall and imposed a tough game on Boozer in an isolated situation. Boozer missed the bucket to help UNC gain possession for the final go-ahead basket.
Duke coach Jon Scheyer said after the game that Boozer itself was the play they wanted, with the result they didn’t want. Boozer had 15 of his 24 points in the second half and finished with 11 rebounds, but was credited with two missed layups in the final 2:25.
Dixon dimes save the day
Freshman Tar Heels guard Derek Dixon was the unsung hero of the comeback. He had eight points and four assists – all in the second half – including the penetration and pass that led to the game winner. Watch him attack the paint as four Duke defenders collapse, leaving Seth Trimble wide open in the corner for an easy bucket.
Davis said they run that exact play all the time in practice after the game, and one of the options outside of that is a skip pass to the corner, just like Dixon did. Trimble did his job by stepping in and delivering the Duke dagger.
“That shot was made by the perfect person at the right time,” Davis said. “He deserves to be forever remembered for the dedication and commitment he showed to his teammates, to his program, to the university and to the community.”
UNC closes like killers
Even when things looked bleak for North Carolina early, midway and late in the second half, it managed to hold on. Davis said after the game that UNC wasn’t fully involved early in the game and didn’t get the short end of the stick in hustle. That changed in the second half as it drove to the finish.
“We kept fighting,” he said. ‘One of the things we missed [early] was, we did not participate in the battle. Any 50/50 loose ball [Duke] got, the ball went on the ground and [Duke] was the first to get it. We just stuck with it. Every time we got knocked down, we got up and took a step forward.
“As we continued to take the lead, our confidence on both ends of the floor increased, our execution got better, our stops got better, our communication defense got better, our rebounding got better… and then Henri stepped up.”
UNC went on a 9-0 run in the final 2:25 to seal the victory, going 3-for-3 – all on 3-pointers. Dixon made the first of those three and assisted on the other two.
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