UNC men's basketball eyes revenge, ACC championship against Duke

Two plays, that’s all the North Carolina men’s basketball team had time to watch in the two days following its 74-73 loss to Duke.

With a crucial home game against Miami, trips to N.C. State and Virginia, and Monday’s regular-season home finale against Syracuse all on the horizon, the Tar Heels couldn’t wallow in how the game played out at the Smith Center on Feb. 17.

They couldn’t think about the eight-point lead they held with less than seven minutes left. They couldn’t reflect on Brice Johnson's lack of touches, or their inability to stop Grayson Allen and Brandon Ingram.

But with Saturday’s regular-season finale against No. 17 Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium looming, those thoughts have resurfaced.

“Now that we’ve had a week to prepare after the Syracuse game, that’s definitely come back up,” said senior Marcus Paige about the first Duke game. “We’ve seen it on film. We’ve talked about it. We’ve emphasized things in practice.

“So it’s been a point of discussion and in the locker room and now we just realize there’s nothing we can do about the home Carolina-Duke game. That’s in the past. Can’t go back and change it … But we can change a lot about how we play (Saturday).”

The contest carries extra meaning for UNC (24-6, 13-4 ACC), as do most of its games against the Blue Devils (22-8, 11-6 ACC).

With a win, the eight-ranked Tar Heels can clinch the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tournament and at least a share of the ACC regular season title — something North Carolina hasn’t achieved since 2012.

But the game also represents a chance for redemption, a chance for UNC’s players — some of whom were crying in the locker room following the loss — to forget what happened in the previous meeting against the Blue Devils.

“It does tick you off a little bit more when you feel like you allowed one that you had in pretty good shape at several times in the second half to slip by,” Coach Roy Williams said.

Since the beginning of the year, the Tar Heels’ seniors have talked about winning something significant in their final season. And Saturday’s game gives them their first opportunity.

But to do so, they’ll have to win at Cameron Indoor Stadium, where they haven’t won since arriving at UNC four years ago.

“It wouldn’t matter where we were playing or who we were playing against,” Paige said. “If you told us we had one game to be ACC champs, then obviously that’d be the biggest game for us in our careers since we haven’t won anything like that.

“So the fact that it is in Cameron and we haven’t won there just elevates that even further.”

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