The smartest thing Hubert Davis did this summer was axe a good portion of last years team and hit the portal. UNC got older, they got more physical and they got better. Tonight against the Blue Devils it showed. UNC played like a team looking to play for the big prize and the Blue Devils couldn’t get out of their own way.
UNC was the quicker team to loose balls, the more aggressive team on both ends of the floor and Duke showed once again that they may bot be quite ready for prime time. The Heels used 11 Duke turnovers to put the game out of reach, scoring 19 points off of those turnovers. That was the death knell for the Blue Devils who fell 84-93. The Blue Devils spent the entire game chasing UNC and the plethora of mental mistakes coupled with a lack of intensity on the glass from Duke bigs who could only muster 14 rebounds between 3 players. It’s not to say Kyle Filipowski didn’t have a good game offensively, the sophomore scored 22 points on 9-17 shooting but could only muster 5 boards.
Jeremy Roach in what will probably be his last trip to Chapel Hill scored 20 points on 9-16 shooting keeping Duke in the game early. Jared McCain had the most impressive game for the Blue Devils scoring a team high 23 points on 9-18 shooting and grabbing a team high 11 boards.
A point I’ve been stressing all season is that Duke has a very small margin for error and that was tested tonight with Duke scoring 18 more paint points than UNC, only losing the rebounding battle by 1, shooting a higher percentage from the field and even winning the battle of second chance points and still the Blue Devils leave with a loss because of a bad floor game.
In the end the frontline of UNC dominated the Blue Devils with 5th year senior Armando Bacot scoring a game high 25 points and grabbing 10 boards and the player of the game Harrison Ingram hitting on 5-9 from beyond the arc scoring 21 points and pulling down 13 rebounds.
