UNC Tar Heels Basketball Team Struggles Mightily Against the Duke Blue Devils and Falls in the Season Finale

by Derrick Isaiah Clyburn

The North Carolina basketball team faced off against Duke in their final regular-season game on Saturday night. After the thrilling win in Chapel, UNC looked to beat Duke this time around without their best player, Caleb Wilson, who was close to his return but broke his thumb in practice on Thursday. It was a back-and-forth game early. Both teams did their fair share of scoring in the paint and tried to impose their will on the other. About midway through the first half, UNC started to be indecisive and passive offensively, which led to bad shots and turnovers. They struggled to find quality shots and were bothered by Duke’s defensive pressure. 

Duke had 12 points off Carolina’s 7 turnovers and put pressure on UNC, driving to the paint and either scoring at the rim or kicking it out for wide open three, which allowed them to gain a 12-point lead over the Heels. Late in the first half, the Tar Heels started to play at their own pace, get into the teeth of the defense, and generate quality shots. The Heels took advantage of Duke’s aggressive defense and attacked it to draw fouls and force double teams, which allowed them to find the open man with the extra pass. Defensively, they started to get stops, forcing Duke into tough contested shots at the rim, and were able to get transition baskets after forcing turnovers. UNC ended the first half on a 10-4 run and went into halftime only down by 5. 

North Carolina came out of halftime and made two threes to cut Duke’s lead to one. From that point on, it all went downhill for the Tar Heels, and Duke proceeded to go on a 30-6 run to go up 71-46, including hitting threes in the first five minutes of the second half. UNC’s game plan to double-team Cameron Boozer didn’t work all game long as the Tar Heels were late on their rotations, failing to close out on shooters. Duke made UNC pay almost every time they were late on closeouts, either knocking down threes or attacking the basket for an easy layup with little resistance from the Heels. Carolina played extremely lazy defense and lacked urgency, energy, and attention to detail on both ends of the floor, which led to turnovers, ill-advised shots, and allowing Duke to secure offensive rebounds.

The Tar Heels just made every self-inflicted mistake possible in the second half, and Duke took advantage of it. The play of the Heels looked as if they had given up at points in the second half, as they weren’t aggressive at all, trying to score the basketball, allowing Duke to dictate every shot they took. Seth Trimble, Henri Veesaar, and Luka Bogavac all had subpar games, and without Caleb Wilson, they cannot win with them playing poorly. Carolina finished the game with the same number of turnovers (14) as assists (14), allowed 18 offensive rebounds that resulted in 14 chance points, and allowed 24 points off their 14 turnovers. The Tar Heels just fell completely apart in the second half and lost by 15 to Duke in a very inexplicable fashion. 

UNC Stats

	1	2	T
17 North Carolina 24-7	34	27	61
1 Duke 29-2	39	37	76

North Carolina

Starters	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO
D. Dixon	17	1	3	5/9	5/8	2/2	2	32	1	0	0
H. Veesaar	11	9	3	5/7	1/2	0/0	1	33	0	1	2
S. Trimble	10	2	6	5/11	0/3	0/0	3	38	0	1	2
J. Stevenson	10	9	0	4/9	0/3	2/2	2	33	0	2	1
L. Bogavac	6	1	1	2/6	2/4	0/0	2	22	0	0	4

Bench	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO
Z. High	5	2	1	2/4	1/1	0/0	2	14	1	1	1
J. Young	2	0	0	1/2	0/1	0/0	1	8	1	0	0
K. Evans	0	2	0	0/1	0/1	0/0	2	8	0	0	2
J. Powell	0	1	0	0/4	0/1	0/0	0	12	1	0	2
I. Denis	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
E. Davis	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
J. Holbrook	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
E. Smith	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
Total	61	27	14	24/53	9/24	4/4	15	–	4	5	14

Duke

Starters	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO
C. Boozer	26	15	5	10/17	2/4	4/6	1	38	0	0	1
M. Brown	15	9	2	6/9	1/3	2/3	4	30	5	1	0
I. Evans	11	2	2	4/14	3/9	0/2	3	26	1	1	2
D. Sarr	10	3	1	4/10	2/5	0/0	1	34	1	1	1
C. Foster	5	1	2	2/6	1/3	0/0	0	11	1	0	0

Bench	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO
C. Boozer	7	5	3	3/6	1/3	0/0	1	29	0	0	1
D. Harris	2	0	0	0/3	0/2	2/2	0	12	0	0	0
J. Scott	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	1	0	0	0
N. Khamenia	0	2	0	0/4	0/3	0/2	2	18	3	2	0
C. Sheffield	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	1	0	0	0
Total	76	37	15	29/69	10/32	8/15	12	–	11	5	5

UNC Bright Spots 

Derek Dixon had 17 points, 3 assists, 1 rebound, and 1 steal. 

Henri Veesaar had 11 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, and 1 block. 

Seth Trimble had 10 points, 6 assists, 2 rebounds, and 1 block. 

Jarin Stevenson had 10 points, 9 rebounds, and two blocks. 

Needs Work  

The Tar Heels need to make sure they are not allowing the defense to dictate what shots they take. The shot selection must be better. They must consistently play through the bigs and attack the basket aggressively to collapse the defense, which will generate better shots for them. They also need to take care of the basket and make the easy pass. They don’t need to force the issue and run their regular, efficient offense that has been working all season long. 

The Heels must be better at crashing the glass. The effort to get rebounds to finish off defensive possessions must be better, and everyone on the floor needs to crash the glass to keep teams from getting second-chance opportunities. 

Defensively, they must be better with their rotations, guarding pick and rolls, and communicating so everyone can know where they need to be on the court. 

Hubert Davis must be making in-game adjustments and stopping the momentum of the opposing team by calling timeouts more quickly. You cannot allow teams to go on extended runs, especially on the road, and expect your team to weather the storm. You have to do everything you can to help your team from the sidelines. When they are going through a tough stretch, you must help them by calling a timeout, calming them down, and helping them regroup. 

Final Observations 

The Tar Heels end their regular season with a 24-7 record and finish 4^th in the ACC standings. North Carolina found out Friday that it will be without Caleb Wilson for the remainder of the season, which is a devastating blow to the team and their championship aspirations. Before this game, the Tar Heels had played decent basketball without Caleb Wilson, going 5-1 in his absence before this loss. It looked as if they had even established an identity without him on the floor, but in this game, it was the worst version of what this team could look like without their best player. In order for the Tar Heels to be successful, they must play hard on both ends of the floor. They cannot make self-inflicted mistakes, such as turnovers, blowing defensive rotations, taking bad shots, and just not giving it their all on the floor. Guys just have to step up and be more aggressive offensively. The Tar Heels are at their best when they play inside-out basketball and use dribble penetration or post play to generate quality shots.

They shouldn’t deviate from doing that offensively. In this game against Duke, it was too much one-on-one basketball or hero basketball being played. There should be no player on the floor doing something they aren’t good at on the court. At this point in the season, it is win-or-go-home. The players must stick to the game plan and execute it at a high level. Before this game, this team did a good job of that, but they must not put too much pressure on themselves. They just need to play unselfish team basketball, and the coaches need to help put them in the best position to win to succeed and win on the floor. This team is still talented enough to do some damage in the tournament, but the margin for error is just much smaller. Coach Davis must make sure they have them prepared for the games ahead of them and challenge his team to play with “I don’t care, no fear” attitude. Next up is the ACC tournament on Thursday, March 12. Their opponent is to be determined, but they will play at 9:30 p.m. on ESPN.