All Tar Heels

Quick Hitters - North Carolina at Duke

Isaac Schade presents Quick Hitters from North Carolina’s 91-87 road win over Duke on Saturday evening.

Isaac Schade

Quick Hitters from North Carolina’s 91-87 road win over Duke on Saturday evening.

Highlights:

Condensed Game:

  • It was not always pretty and it certainly wasn’t perfect, but Carolina will always take a road victory in the ACC; especially at Cameron Indoor Stadium (crazies not included). Being able to say that the Tar Heels have won seven of their last nine sounds infinitely better than saying that they’ve lost two in a row. A win is a win.
  • Every. Play. Matters. It truly felt like Carolina dominated this game, and yet Duke was right in it. UNC held a double-digit lead in each half, but didn’t do the little things necessary to maintain a comfortable margin. There were more careless turnovers and multiple instances of lack of defensive awareness or proper positioning leading to easy buckets for Duke. The next stop on the journey of maturity for this Tar Heel team is learning the sheer importance of every play.
  • This was Carolina’s third straight road game (Pittsburgh, Clemson, Duke). Heading into the stretch, you would obviously love to win all three, but taking two seemed like a rather attainable goal. Winning two is exactly what happened, although perhaps not the two wins most Tar Heel fans would have guessed.
  • After his least effective offensive performance of the season, Armando Bacot picked up right where he had been prior to the Clemson game. 12 of Bacot’s 16 points came in the second half, including eight in the first 4:17 of the second half and four critical free throws in the final five minutes. He also added six rebounds, one assist, one block, and two steals.
  • One of the questions on the road is always “Who will step up?” In the early going, it was Garrison Brooks, who scored 10 points in the first 11:00 (although was shut out the rest of the half and only scored two more points total). For the game though, it was freshman Caleb Love who really put the team on his back. Despite his five turnovers, Love scored a career high 25 points, including a career high four made threes, and doled out a career high seven assists. That 25 and seven mark is a historical achievement: 
  • Love's numbers were not the only piece of history made tonight. In terms of number of freshmen to play in the game, it was the youngest iteration of the Carolina / Duke rivalry, per Bryan Ives:
  • Carolina set a season high in points (91), eclipsing the previous high of 86 set at home against NC State and at the same time hitting the 90-point threshold for the first time this season.
  • Coming into tonight, UNC had assisted on fewer than 50 percent of baskets in two of the last three games. That might be the norm for many teams, but the Tar Heels had been above 50 percent in nine of their previous 10. Tonight they got back above the 50 percent line, assisting on 20 of 34 made baskets (58.8 percent). For the season Carolina has a 55.9 assist percentage.
  • UNC set a new season high by connecting on 66.7 percent of their threes (10-of-15). They hit that exact percentage in each half as well (6-for-9 and 4-for-6). The previous high for a game was 45.0 percent (at Miami, 9-for-20). The previous high for a half was 57.1 percent (at Iowa, 4-for-7, 2nd Half). The six first half threes were the most in a first half this season and tied for the most in any half (at Georgia Tech, six, 2nd Half). Caleb Love and Kerwin Walton were each responsible for four threes, while Leaky Black and Andrew Platek each contributed one.
  • Additionally, Carolina’s overall field goal percentage was above 50 percent in both halves (and therefore, by definition, also for the whole game). UNC hit 51.6 percent (16-for-31) of their shots in the first half, 54.5 percent (18-for-33) in the second, and 53.1 percent (34-for-64) for the game.
  • Free throws continue to be a difficulty for this team (13-for-22, 59.1 percent today). Four straight games of below 60 percent free throw shooting goes beyond “anomaly” territory and into something that appears to be a legitimate issue. On the bright side, Carolina was 9-for-10 at the free throw line in the final five minutes.
  • Six different Tar Heels achieved double-figures in scoring, a season high. Carolina was paced by Love’s 25 and those who joined him in double figures were Bacot (16), Brooks, Black, Walton (each of whom had 12), and Day’Ron Sharpe (11).
  • Black, Walton, and Sharpe were each perfect from the field. The trio combined to make 13 of their 13 shots.
  • UNC did not dominate Duke on the boards and in fact were behind at the break (16-18 overall and 4-6 in offensive rebounds). As so often happens in the second half, the Tar Heels took hold of their rebounding advantage and finished with a 38-31 overall rebounding lead, while enjoying a 14-10 advantage in the offensive rebound category. In another sign of “spreading the wealth”, each of the 10 Tar Heels who played had at least one rebound.
  • Carolina got off to a hot start, thanks to solid shooting (made seven straight after missing their first attempt of the day) and Duke’s carelessness with the ball. UNC led 11-3 three minutes in and had opened up a double digit lead in just over four minutes. 
  • That first double-digit lead (17-7) of the game came courtesy of a trap from Caleb Love and Day’Ron Sharpe. Love grabbed the ball away from Duke’s Jordan Goldwire and threw down a vicious dunk (plus the foul) on the other end. Words alone don’t do the actual footage justice: 
  • Similar to the Clemson game earlier in the week, Leaky Black picked up two early first half fouls. The difference today was that he also picked up a third first half foul, just before the under-8:00 media timeout. Despite the foul troubles, he had an efficient offensive night (4-for-4). The impressive part is that Black didn’t pick up his fourth foul until there were just 46 seconds remaining. He was able to defend well in the second half, poked away the ball for a steal, and additionally added three assists and zero turnovers in that half.
  • Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, the Blue Devils were not so lucky with their foul trouble. Leading scorer (and second leading scorer in the ACC) Matthew Hurt fouled out with 4:16 left. In perhaps the most important development of the game, Carolina held Hurt scoreless in the first half, kept him to just 21:22 of playing time, and allowed him just seven second half points prior to the disqualification. To be fair, the last two of Hurt’s points should not have counted because he stepped out of bounds and was the first to receive the ball after stepping back in just before scoring, but the refs missed his venture outside the lines. 
  • Duke grabbed a brief lead in the closing minutes of the first half. The Tar Heels responded with a nice sequence to re-take the lead. Sharpe had a tip-dunk off a missed Love shot, then Anthony Harris nabbed a steal and found Bacot for a thunderous dunk in transition. Sharpe had an even more impressive one-handed tip-dunk in the second half. Here's the sequence:
  • As per normal, somebody performed for Carolina’s opposition unlike anything they’ve done all season. Joey Baker, for example, made a season high three three pointers and scored a season high 11 points (previous high was six). Similarly, Jalen Johnson made two threes, having previously connected on just four the entire rest of the season. To keep things in perspective though, both these young men found these better looks due at least somewhat in part to Carolina’s defensive attention paid to Hurt. Seems like a decent trade-off.
  • One of the interesting dynamics coming down the stretch dealt with team foul discrepancy. When Bacot committed a foul with 2:28 remaining in the game, it was just Carolina’s third of the half. The Blue Devils, though, had already been whistled for nine.
  • Carolina never allowed Duke to take a second half lead, but the Blue Devils did tie things up at 77 with 4:43 to go (on the previously mentioned illegal Hurt basket). From there, despite a few cringe-worthy mistakes, Carolina did the things they needed to do and made the plays they need to make in order to walk out of Cameron as winners. On Duke's final possession that came within one possession, Love and Black were able to wall off Wendell Moore at the rim and force a travel. Black made two free throws on the other end to give his team a two possession cushion, and that just about did it. 
  • Sterling Manley was in uniform for the first time all season. He obviously didn't play, but you have to feel good for this young man who has worked so incredibly hard to get his body back into position to play. 
  • A historical tidbit: Today was the second time this season (and the 13th time dating back to the 1969-70 season) that the Tar Heels won on the same day that Duke, Kentucky, and Kansas all lost. Here's the full run down of all 13:
Screen Shot 2021-02-06 at 10.30.28 PM

Box Score

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Roy Williams postgame press conference

Players postgame press conference

Caleb Love 

Garrison Brooks 

Armando Bacot 

Leaky Black

Remember to check in for Quick Hitters after every North Carolina basketball game. Next up is a home game against Miami on Monday, February 8. Tip is at 7:00pm ET on ESPN.

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Isaac Schade
ISAAC SCHADE

I grew up in Atlanta knowing that I was going to be the next Maddux or Glavine or Chipper. Unfortunately, I never grew six feet tall, ran 4.4 in the 40-yard dash, threw 90 m.p.h. on the radar gun, or hit 50 home runs. So I had to find a different way to dive head first into sports - writing about it. My favorite all-time sports moment? 1992. NLCS. Game 7. Sid Bream. Look it up. Worst sports moment ever? Two words: Kris. Jenkins. I live in the bustling metropolis of Webb City, MO, where ministry is my full-time job. I spend my free time with my wife, Maggie, and my two children, Pax & Poppy.

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