DURHAM -- North Carolina brought it all, swung with everything the Tar Heels could bring to bear, with Kendall Marshall slicing through the Duke defense seemingly at will.
North Carolina delivered everything but the knockout blow. That 14-point halftime lead was big, but not big enough.
Duke may not be the team the Blue Devils once hoped they would be, but they still have enough firepower to beat North Carolina - and remain the best in the ACC on a night the basketball balance of power nearly swung the other way.
North Carolina never could put Duke away on Wednesday. And once the Blue Devils took the lead, they never looked back in a 79-73 win.
"Those guys keep coming at you, coming at you, coming at you," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. "You've got to keep coming back at them."
After turning back the Tar Heels, the Blue Devils control their own destiny in the ACC. At 9-1, they're a loss ahead of 7-2 North Carolina. It could come down to the March 5 game at the Smith Center, but the Blue Devils are still the team to beat.
That could have changed Wednesday. Since Marshall entered the starting lineup, North Carolina has been a different team. Since Larry Drew II precipitously fled, even more so. But the Tar Heels haven't quite caught up to Duke, not yet anyway.
They had no answer for Nolan Smith and Seth Curry, who took over, combining for 40 of Duke's 50 second-half points - Smith with his usual array of drives, jumpers and long-range shots for a career-high 34, Curry firing away from the perimeter for 22.
As Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has taken pains to point out, this isn't the same Duke team that tore through the beginning of the season with Kyrie Irving running the show. But the Blue Devils showed Wednesday that not as good was still good enough, still the standard in the conference.
It helps to have the likely player of the year in the ACC, and perhaps nationally as well, in Smith. It helps to have a veteran team used to the rigors of this rivalry. It helps to have a player like Curry coming off the bench, good enough to make up for Kyle Singler's off night.
At halftime, down by 14, Krzyzewski told his team, "They're really good, but we're a lot better than what we've shown."
That message hit home. The Blue Devils went out and showed in the second half just how much better they were.
It was a strange night at Cameron, beginning with echoes of the 2009 game when Ty Lawson ran circles around Duke and ending with a second half more reminiscent of the drubbing the Blue Devils administered last year.
Since this season began, North Carolina has narrowed the gap, and maybe in 23 days when they meet again, the gap will have closed. But Wednesday demonstrated that the Devils are still the ACC's best.
"Are you going to tell me that two of the better teams in country are us and North Carolina?" Krzyzewski mused. "Maybe not the best, but are you telling me the team we played tonight isn't one of the best? And we're getting better, too."
North Carolina has gotten a lot better, there's no question about that. Duke proved Wednesday that it's still the better team, and there's no question about that, either.
The Tar Heels took their best shot, and the Blue Devils barely flinched. Apparently, it will take more than that to push them aside in the ACC.
