The final margin wasn’t indicative of how one-sided the beating became, as North Carolina fell to Duke 87-70 on Saturday night in ACC basketball at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
The No. 2 Blue Devils led by as many as 32 points in the second half, after opening a massive 40-13 lead in the first half. UNC shot just 29.6 percent from the field and committed nine turnovers during the first half, while falling into a huge deficit.
Carolina (13-10 overall, 6-5 ACC) suffered its fourth loss in the last five games. The Tar Heels never led on Saturday night and trailed 47-25 at the half, their third-largest halftime deficit against Duke across the 263 games in the storied rivalry’s history.
UNC forward Drake Powell scored all of his 12 points in the second half. RJ Davis finished with 12 points and five rebounds. Seth Trimble contributed 10 points and five rebounds. Meanwhile, four Blue Devils scored in double figures, topped by Cooper Flagg’s monster 21 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. Fellow freshman Kon Knueppel delivered 22 points, five rebounds and five assists, as ACC leader Duke (19-2, 11-0) extended the nation’s longest winning streak to 15 straight victories.
Flagg scored or assisted on Duke’s first 18 points of the game, Read and watch everything from UNC coach Hubert Davis’ postgame remarks, after the Tar Heels used a late 18-2 run to trim Duke’s big lead to 79-63.
What went sideways in those first couple of minutes that created the big hole your team had to try to dig out of for the rest of the game?
HUBERT DAVIS: “Our unforced turnovers, something that we’ve got a problem with, is just turning the ball over. We’ve talked at great length how important it is to take care of the ball in two ways. One, obviously unforced turnovers and shot selection, and our live ball turnovers are turning into pick-six plays for the opponent. So giving teams, just for example, tonight (Duke) got 19 points off of 14 turnovers. Against good teams, that’s just not going to work, and so we just got to do a better job and take care of the basketball. But at the beginning of the game, that was the one key that got us in a hole early at the beginning of the game.”
What led to the struggles on the defensive end during that stretch
DAVIS: “Obviously, in the first half they shot 56 percent from the field. And gifted offensive players, it’s a hard matchup with Cooper (Flagg), so we try to put two on the ball, which puts us in rotations. He’s such a gifted pastor, and his ability to pass because of his length, our double teams are coming with, 6-4 and 6-5, and his ability to see over and find teammates for open 3s that put us in close outs. In the second half, we decided not to double them down low on the post, but they automatically have a guy that can put two on the ball, generate offense instantly in a half court set. And then also they’re length and offensive rebounds, keeping second chance opportunities, you always have to make contact first and we weren’t doing that. When you go against a team with that much length, your ability to get second chance points and chances really hurt us, offensively or defensively for us.”
On Duke’s weapons playing as advertised and the Blue Devils’ shooting from the outside:
DAVIS: “I’m not shocked. We put two on a ball. As I said before, Cooper is a great basketball player, and so his ability to create for himself and create for his teammates has been something that’s been a huge benefit for their team. And so I wasn’t shocked by anything. They’re good, good players. I’ve seen them all since high school, and they’re playing at a higher level. I was really proud of our fight and our perseverance in the second half. I thought we did some good things on both ends before the second half that can move us positively forward, and that’s something that I communicated to the team throughout the second half and after the game.”
With losing four of the last five games now, where is your head at? Is it frustration or is your focus on trying to fix it
DAVIS: “Yeah. there’s frustration. What I’ve told you guys this, and I specifically told them tonight, the only thing that you have control over and anything is how you react and how you respond. I told them this is a great lesson in life. They’re going to be speed bumps and traffic and wind and rain, and how do you react? How do you respond when it’s a sunny day and when it’s a windy day? And so the thing that I have been proud of this team is its fight. It stays connected, it stays together. It competitively, continues to move forward, and my expectation is for us to continue to move forward. We don’t play for another week, so this is a great week for us to regroup, to come together as a team, to practice moving forward towards the stretch.”
What’s the best counter against a team that has so much length like Duke does?
DAVIS: “The counter was how we played in the second half. We created gaps to be able to get into the lane. We played off of two feet. We had tremendous spacing, ball and player movement. There’s a reason in the second half we shot 64 percent against the same defense. That combination of ball and player movement was not consistent in the first half, and if you don’t have that against them, it’s very difficult to score because of what you said, they’re length. It’s real from one through five. And so the gaps are small, and you have to move those gaps to make them bigger. And we were able to do that in the second half, but unfortunately, we were just behind too much.”
Sitting with a 13-10 record right now, where would you say this team is?
DAVIS: “Well, obviously we’re not where we want it to be. But I go back to how do you react and how do you respond? And you move forward, you continue to competitively fight, and there’s so much of a season still left to get better and to improve. The one encouraging thing for me is that I don’t think we’ve reached our full potential, and that’s out there. I’ve seen how good we can be on both ends of the floor, the consistency is the thing that is needed from this group. And we have time, and we have opportunity to move forward to be able to do that, and we’re very thankful for that last one. I love this team here. I love coaching this group, and I believe in this team. I think we can be really good.”
How much was your team’s play in the last eight minutes of the game a result of increased energy?
DAVIS: “I thought our perseverance, being down and coming out in the second half was really good. We stayed the course. We stayed together and stayed the course. I told them that repeatedly in the huddle, stay together and stay the course, one possession at a time, and they believed in each other. They continued to work hard and continue to competitively fight. Yes, we’re discouraged, but we’re going to move forward. We’re going to get back up, move forward and continue to get better and try to become the team that I think we all know we can be.”
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