It didn’t take long for the big rivalry game to come apart. 36 seconds, in fact. But the story is not even that simple.
The box score will show that North Carolina went up the road to Duke and handled the Blue Devils 88-72 at Cameron Indoor Stadium. It will show that Zion Williamson played less than a minute. It will show more, which we will get to. But it still won’t tell the whole story.
Williamson’s legend grew when he tried to make a move around the foul line, except his left shoe wanted no part of it. In something that will be talked about for a while, his left shoe basically disintegrated, and Williamson went down awkwardly with his right knee looking like it might have buckled. With all his weight, one could fear an MCL/ACL injury. How it happened, though, will be talked about for a long time, because chances are most of us have never seen a player’s shoe basically blow up like that.
It’s easy to say Duke lost simply from not having him from a production standpoint, especially given that he impacts the game all over. But as Jay Bilas noted on the ESPN broadcast, the Blue Devils looked out of the game emotionally, as if they were only in the building physically. All talk about being mentally tough aside, you can’t blame them to some degree, because they just watched a teammate and friend go down with an injury and they are surely concerned about him. They’re human beings, not robots.
North Carolina took full advantage. The Tar Heels ran often, aided by some awful transition defense by Duke, and they went to the basket to score just about any time they wanted to. They scored 62 points in the paint and shot just under 51 percent from the field largely because they shot over 66 percent on two-point shots (they were just 2-20 from three-point range on the night).
Duke didn’t help at the offensive end, settling far too often for early three-pointers (something the Tar Heels were also guilty of at times early on). Certainly, the offense is different without their top player, but it’s not as if the Blue Devils are normally Williamson and four stiffs on the floor – they have some pretty talented and skilled players. R.J. Barrett and Cam Reddish know a little about how to play the game, as do guys like Marques Bolden and Javin DeLaurier. Duke took 39 three-point shots and made just eight, with R.J. Barrett taking 11 (he had 33 points on 11-22 shooting but was just 3-11 from downtown) and Cam Reddish doing him one better with 12 (he had 27 points but was 10-23 from the field, making just four from deep). The Blue Devils had nine assists on 25 made field goals.
In recent years, the Tar Heels haven’t had the preseason buzz of Duke, and they have flown a little under the radar. As such, it’s been a little easier to miss that the Tar Heels have guys like Luke Maye (30 points on 14-24 shooting, 15 rebounds) and Cameron Johnson (26 points, seven rebounds), or even a great defender like Kenny Williams, who showed up in a lot of plays at that end in this one.
North Carolina now pulls into a three-way tie atop the ACC at 11-2 with Duke and Virginia. The Tar Heels and Blue Devils have one more meeting, while neither plays Virginia again.
Leading up to the game were stories of what ticket prices were on the street, and the crowd featured Spike Lee, MLB Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. and former President Barack Obama. All of that, along with the game result, will be forgotten in light of what happened half a minute into the game. Even so, the story will not be that simple at the end of the day.
Side Dishes
In recent years, Syracuse has been a team often connected with the bubble, not unlike Virginia Tech used to be. This season, that shouldn’t be the case now, although a collapse could change that. Wednesday night’s 69-49 blowout of Louisville puts them at 9-4 in the ACC and is another quality win. In a year with a very weak bubble, the Orange are stronger than a lot of teams outside of those that most would call locks right now. And in Raleigh, a run by Boston College nearly allowed the Eagles to hand NC State a damaging home loss. But once the game went to overtime, the Wolfpack had a new lease on life and took control en route to an 89-80 win.
But for Duke-North Carolina, the big news of the night might have come out west, where San Diego State held off Nevada 65-57. With Utah State taking care of business by beating New Mexico 71-55, Nevada is only a half game up in first place in the Mountain West, a conference most understandably thought they would run away with.
The SEC had what might be termed a very interesting night. It wasn’t too surprising that Auburn handled Arkansas 79-56 save for perhaps the margin, and it’s a damaging loss for the Razorbacks in terms of NCAA at-large hopes as they have lost most, if not all, of their margin for error at this point. Florida has found new life all of a sudden, as the Gators won their third straight by going to LSU and coming out with an 82-77 overtime win, which puts them over .500 in SEC play for the first time this month at 7-6. Then there was the strange ending, which came in how Mississippi State edged Georgia 68-67 in Athens. A fan threw a stuffed bulldog onto the court with less than a second remaining, and the resulting technical free throws gave Mississippi State the margin of victory and capped a 31-point outing for Quindarry Weatherspoon. It salvaged a game where they at one point led by 17 points, but let that lead evaporate.
In other SEC news, Kentucky expects to be without Reid Travis for a week or two due to a sprained right knee suffered in Tuesday night’s win at Missouri. The graduate transfer from Stanford has been a key player in the frontcourt and veteran presence on a young team.
The Big East saw a wild night that was highlighted by Georgetown knocking off Villanova 85-73 in the nation’s capital, a win that can help put the Hoyas in the NCAA Tournament discussion if they win more games. Aside from that, a couple of their more solid teams suffered head-scratching losses. Xavier edged Seton Hall 70-69 in Newark, while the harder one to explain was Providence handling a listless St. John’s team 78-59 a game after the Red Storm got a big win. Yes, Providence isn’t a terrible team, and they were at home, but the Red Storm didn’t come to play. Marquette took over in the second half to take care of Butler 79-69 in the least surprising result of the night, one that puts the Golden Eagles a half game up in the standings.
Out west, Washington and Arizona State took care of business at home, with the Huskies shutting down Utah 62-45 Sun Devils handling Stanford 80-62.
A night after Drake took sole possession of first place in the Missouri Valley, they got some company as Loyola-Chicago beat Evansville 70-58. Missouri State could have joined them as well, but Northern Iowa came to Springfield and blew them out 63-43 thanks to outscoring the Bears 46-24 in the second half.
Florida Gulf Coast hasn’t been the Atlantic Sun pacesetter this season like it has for a few years, but on Wednesday they certainly influenced the race for the regular season title as they knocked off Lipscomb 67-61, which drops the Bisons a half game behind Liberty. Lipscomb and Liberty split the two head-to-head meetings, with the road team winning both times.
Tonight’s Menu
The busy night of action features full slates in the Big South, CAA, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Southern and Sun Belt.
- A golden opportunity for a quality win is presented to Minnesota as they host Michigan (7 p.m.)
- A key game in the American Athletic Conference is on tap as UCF visits Cincinnati (7 p.m.)
- There’s also a key game in America East as Vermont visits UMBC (7 p.m.)
- A Big South showdown is on tap as Radford hosts second-place Winthrop (7 p.m.)
- Summit League action includes a big one with Purdue Fort Wayne visiting South Dakota State (8 p.m.)
- A key game in the battle for second in the WCC is BYU hosting San Francisco (9 p.m.)
- The Pac-12 slate includes two teams in a big slump as Cal travels to Arizona and a couple of middling teams that could be a nice matchup with Oregon visiting USC (9 p.m.), then UCLA hosts Oregon State to close the night out (11 p.m.)
