UNC basketball embarrassed by Duke on home floor

Nothing went according to plan for the UNC basketball program on Saturday night, as they suffered another blowout loss, this one courtesy of their biggest rival.

As always, there was a lot of anticipation surrounding the first matchup this season between the UNC basketball program and the Duke Blue Devils.

For starters, the rivalry was renewed once again. Do you even need to say more?

Additionally, this game had a little more importance for both coaches. This was the last game Mike Krzyzewski will coach in Chapel Hill, as he’ll be retiring at the end of the season. For North Carolina’s Hubert Davis, this game marked the first time he’s been a head coach in this heated rivalry.

Unfortunately, not much went right, as Coach K and his Blue Devils took the nine-mile trip back to Durham with a huge victory.

From early on, Duke gave everyone the sense that they would flat-out dominate the game. They led right from the start and didn’t look back, cruising to an 87-67 victory.

North Carolina got off to a sluggish start and suffered a big blow with junior big man picking up his second foul before the first television timeout. Bacot picked up both fouls while guarding Paolo Banchero, which was an overall matchup nightmare for the Tar Heels big man.

Thanks to a strong first half from Brady Manek, the Tar Heels went into the half trailing by just 11. However, Duke continued to extend the lead and led by as many as 28 points down the stretch.

AJ Griffin was the star for the Blue Devils, as he scored a career-high 27 points. With Leaky Black forced to shadow Banchero, the freshman was often guarded by Manek, who couldn’t keep up with his speed and athleticism.

Manek led the Tar Heels with 21 points on 7-of-16 shooting. The rest of the Tar Heels made just 14 of their 43 shot attempts.

A couple of things stood out in this game:

Duke clearly has a talent advantage. Their roster has more skill and athleticism, and most importantly more depth, as Coach K was able to utilize fresh players throughout.

To counter that, Davis elected to essentially use two subs for somewhat significant minutes (Walton and Johnson). Yes, the loss of Anthony Harris and the absence of Dawson Garcia hurts, but a short rotation isn’t going to work, especially given that the fatigue has been kicking in for the Tar Heels starters.

Manek was outstanding but simply wore out. In the second half, after playing the entire first 20 minutes of the game, you could see Manek was out of gas, as he became a liability on defense and began to lose touch on his shot.

Give credit to Leaky Black, who really stepped up for the Tar Heels defensively. He had a tough task of chasing down Banchero and was then switched over to try and slow down Griffin. After five points in the early going, Banchero only had eight points the rest of the way, which shows just how good of a job Black did.

Duke came in wanting to win this game. Did they want redemption from last year? Were they looking to make Coach K’s last trip to Chapel Hill a memorable one? It honestly could be both, but the sense from watching this one was that the Blue Devils were the better and more prepared team in this contest.

For North Carolina, this loss does hurt their NCAA tournament resume. The Tar Heels still feature no Quad 1 wins, and their last remaining Quad 1 game on the schedule is a rematch with the Blue Devils a month from today.

A lot could change from here on out, but you have to wonder what the next few weeks will look like for the UNC basketball program.

The Tar Heels are back in action on Tuesday night, as they’ll continue ACC play on the road against Clemson. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:00 PM EST.

Continue to follow the Keeping It Heel team for all the latest news and notes regarding the UNC basketball program.