It’s no less than incredible how the last 10:31 of the second national semifinals Saturday night might affect Duke, the ACC, Carolina and the blue blood rivalry from history to tomorrow to the future.
Imagine how many Tar Heel fans turned off the broadcast in disgust when the Blue Devils held a 13-point lead over never-say-die Houston more than midway through the second half in San Antonio (the site of perhaps UNC’s most disappointing Final Four loss back in 2008 as a top seed), missing an epic comeback. And while the celebrations in Chapel Hill and along Franklin Street for whoever watched to the end did not match those of Carolina actually beating Duke, the sky was definitely a brighter blue when the sun came up Sunday.
There’s no denying how overlapping such losses can be for the opposite program. Both fan bases remember the highs and lows of each rivalry game, but also how their foe did on the national stage in the NCAA tournament.
This loss will live forever for the Dukies, who last suffered through something similar three years ago in New Orleans when the Tar Heels ended Mike Krzyzewski’s Hall of Fame career in the second semifinal. The panicked look of their fans in the last few minutes was similar to the Cameron Indoor crowd in the second half of Coach K’s last home game — when the Tar Heels stormed back with an offensive blitzkrieg that left the program despondent afterward, only to recover and reach the 2022 Final Four.
Coach K may decide not to attend another (with or without Duke playing) after returning to a Duke NCAA game for the first time since his career ended in the Big Easy on the hot shooting of R.J. Davis, Caleb Love and Brady Manek. His protégé Jon Scheyer was on the verge of doing something his mentor took six years to do (reaching Monday night) and 11 to win it all (1991).
The rivalry may have new names and faces, but the facts never change. This morning felt better to be a Tar Heel than in a long while, and Carolina men’s basketball had nothing to do with it after losing all three games to Duke and going out meekly to Ole Miss in the first round of the Big Dance. It does not minimize the frustration of those results, but we know how badly the Dukies feel because of the pain from UNC’s 1977 loss to Marquette, the 1981 loss to Indiana, the 2016 loss to Villanova and a half-dozen semifinal sufferings.
And it makes tomorrow look slightly better after Hubert Davis landed the 7-foot big man he’s been seeking in Henri Veesaar on Friday, getting the Tar Heels off to a good start rebuilding their roster. Duke, on the other hand, must beat this hangover
