First place in the ACC still on the line for Duke, UNC amid coaches’ historic moments
Mike Krzyzewski was there the night they opened the Smith Center, and he’ll make his last visit there on Saturday, 36 years later. Hubert Davis had a winning record against Duke as a player; Krzyzewski’s last road game in the rivalry is Davis’ first as a coach.
There are so many ancillary stories surrounding this game, history coming and going, even by the standards these teams set decades ago. There’s always a lot of frosting on this particular cake, regardless of circumstances — even when the teams aren’t all that good, like a year ago, that’s still historic! — but Saturday feels like it may have more than its usual share considering neither team is anywhere close to No. 1.
The grand tributes on Krzyzewski’s farewell tour — a donation to the Emily Krzyzewski Center at Florida State; a baseball bat and blue-waxed bourbon at Louisville, presented by Denny Crum — haven’t yet overshadowed anything Duke has done on the court, and while there won’t be anything coming from UNC on Saturday, if there was ever going to come a time on this journey where the game got lost in the shuffle, this would be it.
Krzyzewski’s last trip to Chapel Hill aside, this game can stand on its own.
Duke may not be No. 1 as it was two months ago, and North Carolina may still be a bit of a mystery even on a four-game winning streak, but the winner of this game is still going to either retain sole possession (Duke) or claim a share (North Carolina) of first place in the ACC.
Given the almost total absence of Quad 1 wins in ACC play this season, it’s a rare chance for both teams to polish their NCAA tournament profile — the upside for North Carolina is obvious, but Duke has work to do as well, if nothing else to avoid getting sent out west where Krzyzewski has never advanced.
Throw in that both teams may just be hitting their stride — Duke back rolling after a jarring COVID pause, North Carolina having actually won on the road, as ugly as it was in Louisville — and there’s a lot more to look forward to Saturday than there would have been even a few weeks ago.
The matchups are juicy: How will Duke’s offense-defense frontcourt of Paolo Banchero and Mark Wililams fare against double-double machine Armando Bacot? Can North Carolina guards Caleb Love and RJ Davis both get hot at the same time, especially if Duke’s Trevor Keels isn’t at full strength?
Duke is unquestionably the more talented team, but North Carolina has been brimming with confidence at home, and only a very small handful of players will ever have played in an environment like this since there were no fans in Cameron and just a few thousand in the Smith Center last season.
This game, this first meeting of two or three (or, someday, four?) between the rivals, always feels like a milepost in the ACC season, the halfway point spiritually if not quite mathematically. The boulder’s at the top of the mountain, and this is where it starts rolling and doesn’t stop until Monday night becomes Tuesday morning in New Orleans in April.
Krzyzewski’s final game in Cameron is only a month away. The third ACC tournament in Brooklyn after that. And then the NCAA tournament, where Krzyzewski’s final game at Duke will take place, somewhere along the line, win six or lose one.
This game marks the beginning of that ending, just as it marks the ending of the beginning for Davis, his true basketball baptism as coach of the Tar Heels. Amid all that, it’s easy to forget there’s a game being played, with nothing less than first place in the ACC at stake. ‘Twas ever thus.
This story was originally published February 5, 2022 at 6:03 AM.
