The first game has the hype. The second has the stakes.
Duke and Carolina play twice every regular season. The early February series opener generally is preceded by a tsunami of media hype, becoming the biggest show this side of the Super Bowl.
When the two teams meet to close out the regular season, however, things are different. Oh, there’s still hype—it’s not like the game is going to be ignored by ESPN or the various North Carolina media outlets.
The first game is a stand-alone, though—a high point in a long season. By the time the Blue Devils and Tar Heels meet a second time, there are things that need to be decided.
Often, NCAA seedings and ACC titles are on the line. But this time around, Duke has clinched at least a share of the league’s regular season crown already and is a surefire top March Madness seed, most likely in the East Region.
The Blue Devils are also on a historic roll. Duke has won seven straight games, by an average of 31.9 points, including the last four by a combined 400-252 score. The Blue Devils have scored 100 points in a game four times this season, the most since the 2010 season. That includes three times since Valentine’s Day. They’ve set an ACC record with 10 25-point victories in league play.
“I thought this was the most connected, executing, Duke team that we’ve played against in the many times we’ve been here,” said Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton. “They have an execution. They execute their defense. And I think each time you make a mistake, they make you pay. They play to who they are. They play to each other.”
That’s a strong endorsement indeed, considering Hamilton has been at FSU and coming to Duke regularly since 2002—seeing a pair of Blue Devil national champions in the process.
“In the many times we’ve been here, we’ve had a lot of challenges,” he said. “Against some good teams, we’ve had a lot of good games, a lot of close losses, close victories. But this team doesn’t appear to have a real serious weakness other than youth, and they seem to have found a way to overcome their inexperience by being together, connected, and having that synergy that it takes to make a special run.”
If history is any indicator, a special Duke run usually gets ignited by a win over Carolina to close the regular season. Since 1991, the Blue Devils have beaten the Tar Heels 15 times in the season-ending showdown. Five of those times, Duke went on to win the national title. (UNC also triggered all four of its national championship runs with wins over Duke to launch into March.)
Duke will also be playing for just its third regular-season sweep of the Tar Heels in the last decade and can win both by double-digits for just the fourth time since 1967, joining the 1999, 2002 and 2010 teams.
UNC has also been on a roll, but the stakes are higher for the Tar Heels entering the game. Entering the final week of the regular season, Carolina has put together its longest winning streak of the season, winning five straight, the last four by double figures. Still, it hasn’t budged the Heels onto the bright side of the bubble. UNC has gone from “next four out” into the “first four out” in most bracketology projections, but no reputable projection has Carolina in the field.
That’s because the wins have come against the bottom tier of the ACC. At least two of the five victories came against opponents who will miss the ACC Tournament after finishing in the bottom three, and four of the five wins were considered Quad III or Quad IV wins for the Heels.
On the season, UNC is just 1-10 against Quad I foes—those are the ones that change minds on the selection committee. And the current hot streak was immediately preceded by four Quad I losses in a six-game stretch that included a 17-point loss at Duke.
A win over Duke would give the Heels their elusive Quad I win and give them a legitimate argument that they deserve an NCAA bid. A loss would simply underscore the narrative that UNC’s hot streak is just a result of a soft spot in the schedule and not evidence of improvement.
In other words, the thing UNC needs to get into the Big Dance is a win over the one team that would relish nothing more than keeping them out.
The time for hype is over. Second one is for the stakes.
