Duke tops UNC in thriller we knew was coming

CHAPEL HILL, NC — Duke and North Carolina delivered again.

The basketball juggernauts proved that when they get together, you can expect the unexpected. What transpires at times might not make much sense, but at least it's usually thrilling.

That was definitely the case Wednesday night in Duke's shocking 85-84 buzzer-beating victory over the No. 5 Tar Heels in a stunned Dean Dome.

Duke freshman guard Austin Rivers came up huge (29 points) and drained the final 3-pointer, securing a win that, for most of the second half, seemed highly improbable.

Surely there was no way the struggling Blue Devils could come into this massive hallowed hall and beat perhaps the most talented team in the nation, a UNC squad playing its best hoops of the season.

Not this Duke team fresh off a home loss to Miami — its second home defeat to a school from Florida in three weeks. Not these Blue Devils, who had been openly criticized by their own Hall of Fame coach the past few days.

Are you kidding?

These Devils admitted three days earlier that they'd taken playing at home for granted. And Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski had employed tactics to try to help his team jell off the court — knowing that if they liked each other enough, they just might play more for one another on the court.

After Sunday's loss to the Hurricanes, Krzyzewski said his team needed to understand what it takes to play for a banner. They needed to know the commitment and degrees of intensity required to live up to the program's standards.

That resonated with his club.

"We came in with a cockiness and an attitude knowing we were going to win," Duke junior guard Seth Curry said. "We came in with that swagger.  . . . We came out with energy from the start. A lot of games we weren't really coming out with the passion and intensity we need early, but we did tonight."

Duke opened strong, hitting half of its first 10 3-pointers and leading for the first 19 minutes. But UNC closed the half with an 8-1 rush, and conventional wisdom suggested Carolina would pour it on in the second half.

After all, this was a Duke team that began showing signs of doubt in its body language late in the half, and all UNC had to do was seize the opportunity.

It appeared the Tar Heels were well on that track with their largest lead at 57-44 with 15:08 to play. The building was in a frenzy, and Duke was on the ropes.

At one point, UNC had put together a 47-29 stretch of hoops that was positively breathtaking. During the run, the Heels displayed what makes them so incredibly difficult to defend.

But UNC, sometimes questioned about its toughness, failed to put its foot on Duke's throat. The game hovered around the 10-point mark until just 129 seconds remained. That's when the Blue Devils made their final move.

A 3-pointer by Tyler Thornton, a 3 by Curry, a soft baseline jumper by junior forward Ryan Kelly, and another jumper by Kelly brought the Devils to within 83-82 with 14 seconds left. UNC senior Tyler Zeller (23 points, 11 rebounds) points, made just one of two free throws, and just before the horn sounded, Duke's Rivers hit his amazing 3-pointer for the win.

As Duke's players stormed the floor, convening in a royal blue pile opposite UNC's bench, the Tar Heels and their legion of fans stood in total disbelief. Duke had just stolen one right out from under the Tar Heels' nose.

But don't tell the Devils they stole it.

"We won, we won," Duke junior center Mason Plumlee said. "That wasn't no lucky shot."

UNC point guard Kendall Marshall agreed with his rival.

"I don't want to say they stole it," he said, with red in his eyes. "They made winning plays to win the game."

OK, so maybe Duke didn't really steal it, though it sure looked that way. Perhaps UNC's benevolence was just too hard for the Devils to pass up.

But Duke won this game as so many in this series have been settled: The winner made just one more winning play than the other. The ebbs and flows sometimes give the illusion that these games are headed in one direction when they quickly change course, like a tornado on the plains often has no course.

The one constant was that Duke carried a mindset throughout that has helped it win gazillions of games before. The players understood the temperament of these affairs.

"Coach always talks about like a boxer, you don't win every round," Plumlee said. "For us, we didn't win every round, but we were at our best at the end, and that's a heck of a win."

It was a heck of a win and a heck of a game. But what else would you expect from the greatest rivalry in American sports?