What UNC needs to worry about after the loss at Duke

North Carolina played so poorly in the second half of Saturday’s loss at Duke, Roy Williams was ready to chalk it up to aliens.

“I think some aliens crawled up in my guys’ bodies in the second half because that wasn’t the North Carolina team that I’ve seen all year,” Williams joked.

The Tar Heels coach will probably be safe from our extraterrestrial friends in the ACC tournament. UNC (22-9, 11-7 ACC), the No. 6 seed, will play the winner of Tuesday’s Syracuse-Wake Forest game on Wednesday night in Brooklyn.

But there are other reasons to be concerned after UNC away a 13-point lead in the second half of a 74-64 loss to the Blue Devils.

First, and foremost, the meaning of the second Duke-Carolina game each season since Williams returned to Chapel Hill in 2003.

The winner of the second game has been to the Final Four eight times in 14 years and won the national title five times. In total, the winner has a 56-9 record in the NCAA tournament.

UNC has won the second game nine times under Williams and made at least the Final Eight in all but one of those seasons.

The losing team, however, has not advanced past the Sweet 16 and has lost in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament seven times — including Duke last year to South Carolina.

The losing team has a 17-13 NCAA tournament record over the same span (with UNC’s 2010 as the only team that didn’t make the NCAA field).

UNC’s best tournament run after a loss in the second game was to the Sweet 16 in 2015.

There is precedent for UNC that it has been able to recover from a loss in the second meeting with Duke. The 1999-2000 team made the Final Four after a 90-76 loss at Cameron Indoor Stadium in the regular-season finale.

The 1990-91 team, which lost at home to Duke, recovered to smash the Blue Devils in the ACC championship game and then, of all things, lose to Williams and Kansas in the Final Four.

Historical trends aside, there were some concerns for the Tar Heels after they went from up 44-33 to tied at 52 in a matter of minutes and then tied again 60 to down 70-62.

Duke star Marvin Bagley was UNC’s biggest problem in the second half. The 6-11 freshman forward scored 18 of his game-high 21 points in the second half.

UNC, which does not have one of its usual rim-protectors to clean up on defense, had no answer for Bagley.

“Six-eleven, athletic as all get out, long arms, he’s a heckuva basketball player,” Williams said. “I don’t have anybody like that.”

Not many teams do but size has bothered UNC this season. Junior forward Luke Maye and senior wing Theo Pinson are both playing out of position on defense.

Miami’s Ebuka Izundu will never be confused for Bagley but his 12-point outburst in the first half of Tuesday’s game at the Smith Center changed the complexion of that game.

Foul trouble limited Duke’s other big, freshman Wendell Carter (nine points, nine rebounds) but Bagley cleaned up.

“We don’t have a guy to protect the rim,” Williams said “It’s just who we are. We have been able to make up for it and win a couple of games this year anyway.”

If UNC wins twice in Brooklyn, and Duke once, the rivals will meet again on Friday. Who knows what bigger-type teams the Heels will be paired up with in the NCAA tournament.

The selection committee’s initial top-16 seeding had them in the same regional as Purdue and Arizona, which are about the last two teams UNC would want to see in their bracket.

On the plus side, the real problem for the Tar Heels on Saturday wasn’t that Bagley went off it was that their star, senior guard Joel Berry, had an off game. Berry, who equaled a career-high with 31 points in Tuesday’s loss to Miami, had just six points against Duke and finished 0-7 from the 3-point line.

This UNC team, with minimal scoring help off the bench and reliant Berry and Maye (who had 13 points on 15 shots) for offense, can’t win without Berry being Berry.

So in that sense, Saturday’s game could be a blip. Berry’s one of the best postseason players in school history. That sentence covers a lot of ground but he was the 2016 ACC tournament MVP, the 2017 Final Four Most Outstanding Player and the only player since UCLA’s Bill Walton in 1972-73 to score 20 points in consecutive national title games.

“If there’s anybody I’m not worried about, it’s Joel Berry,” Pinson said.

Scratch Berry, the ultimate competitor, and aliens, off the “to be worried about” list but their interior defense could ultimately prove to be their demise.

This story was originally published March 4, 2018 at 12:17 PM with the headline "What UNC needs to worry about after the loss at Duke."