No. 14 North Carolina stunned No. 4 Duke 71-68 with a last-second go-ahead 3-pointer in Chapel Hill on Saturday to complete its largest comeback vs. the rival Blue Devils in 25 years. UNC trailed by as many as 13 points in the first half and at various points throughout the second half — even with as little as six minutes left — it seemed Duke had a firm hold on the game.
Until it didn’t.
UNC stayed persistent and chipped away little by little before chasing Duke down for good courtesy of a corner 3-pointer from Seth Trimble with 0.4 seconds remaining. Duke’s last-ditch effort to force overtime ended with a bobbled inbounds that didn’t result in a shot attempt.
Here’s how the Tar Heels, who lost all three matchups vs. Duke last season and entered the game 4-6 under fifth-year coach Hubert Davis, got a desperately needed win to punch back in one of the sport’s best rivalries.
All Duke early
Just over six minutes into the game, the Blue Devils opened up an 18-5 lead to silence the noisy crowd inside the Dean Smith Center. In that span, five different Duke players scored points — and that didn’t include leading scorer Cameron Boozer.
UNC closed the gap to 22-20 on the strength of a 15-2 run that got the crowd back into it. But Duke captured the momentum again going into the half with an impressive 19-9 run of its own in the final eight minutes of the first half. It led 41-29 going into the second half. That was one point shy of its largest lead of the game.
Caleb Wilson keeps UNC afloat
UNC’s supporting cast around star forward Caleb Wilson has been stellar all season. But it was nonexistent in the first half. Wilson accounted for 17 of the team’s 29 first-half points. The rest of the Tar Heels shot a woeful 4 of 20 from the field.
Wilson was spectacular, though. So spectacular that UNC’s 12-point deficit felt somehow miraculous not to be 20+ points. He hit tough mid-range fadeaway after tough mid-range fadeaway, reliably getting to his spot of comfort on the court.
Wilson led all scorers at the half. Only one other UNC player in the opening 20 minutes made more than two field goals.
“Caleb kept us around in the first half,” Davis said after the game.
“We continued to fight. We were down. We didn’t join the fight …. We continued to stick to it … as we continue to cut into 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 huge. Caleb kept us in it.”
Veesaar comes alive
UNC’s second-leading scorer, Henri Veesaar, had zero points on 0-of-2 shooting in the first half. A virtual no-show.
Veesaar in the second half: team-high 13 points on 6-of-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 full-blown flamethrower down the stretch. None of his buckets were more critical than the 3 he hit just at the 1:40 mark of the second half to tie things up. It lifted the crowd up and seemed to breathe new life into a once-dead UNC team.
“Henri stepped up,” Davis said postgame. “I mean, he had zero rebounds in the first half, then a double-double in the second half. His ability to dominate points in the paint for us was huge.”
UNC gets key stop at critical time
Duke did not score a single point over the final 2:25, during which it went 0-for-3 with two missed layups and also failed to get a shot off as time expired at the end.
That is in part attributable to Duke’s inability to convert, but UNC deserves credit for its timely stops. Its last stand was arguably its biggest, as the Tar Heels defense stood tall and forced a tough contest on Boozer in an isolation situation. Boozer missed the bucket to help set UNC up with possession for the final go-ahead basket.
Duke coach Jon Scheyer said after the game that Boozer in isolation was the play they wanted with the result they didn’t. 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 — which included the penetration and pass that led to the game-winner. Check here how he attacks to the paint while four Duke defenders collapse, leaving Seth Trimble wide open in the corner for an easy bucket.
Davis said postgame they run that exact play in practice all the time, and one of the options off it is a skip pass to the corner just as Dixon did. Trimble did his job by stepping into it and delivering the Duke dagger.
“That shot was made by the perfect person at the right time,” Davis said. “He’s deserving of being remembered forever of the commitment and devotion he’s made to his teammates, to his program, to the university, to the community.”
UNC closes like killers
Even when things looked bleak for North Carolina early, at the half and late in the second half, it managed to persist. Davis said postgame that early in the game UNC was not totally engaged and getting the short straw of hustle plays. That flipped in the second half as it powered to the finish.
“We continued to fight,” he said. “One of the things we were missing [early] was, we didn’t join the fight. Every 50/50 loose ball [Duke] was getting, ball was going on the ground and [Duke] was the first to get it. We just continued to stick to it. Every time we got knocked down we got up and we took a step forward.
“As we continued to cut into the lead, our confidence got better on both ends of the floor, our execution got better, our stops got better, our communicational 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 win, during which it went 3-for-3 — all on 3-pointers. Dixon made the first of those three and assisted on the other two.
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