North Carolina Beats Duke, 101-87

Last night the North Carolina Tarheels came back from a 52-44 halftime deficit to defeat Duke on the road. Definitely an impressive win and one that solidifies UNC as one of the top two teams in the country along with UConn. Just by watching this game alone, you can tell that UNC is still a major threat to win a national championship, despite a couple of hiccups earlier in the season.

If we take a look deeper into the gameplan and boxscore for this matchup, you can see exactly why UNC won this game. For the most part, UNC and Duke were even on the boards, protected the ball equally, and made the same amount of shots from the field, with Duke actually making 2 more threes than UNC. So how come the score wasn't close? Well, UNC went to the free throw line 31 times and made 27 of them, while Duke hit only 11 of 18 attempts. Basically, UNC shot 31 free throws on 62 field goal attempts and any time you take half as many free throw attemps as field goals, you most likely are going to outscore you opponent unless you can't shoot free throws.

Now the fact that UNC took more free throws than Duke is pretty obvious, but I think the reason why Duke ended up putting UNC on the line so much is because Duke is not big enough or athletic enough to hang with UNC. This was also their problem when they played and lost to Wake Forest and Clemson. When Duke made their run in the first half, UNC failed to use their advantage in size & athleticism and was shooting more jumpers from the outside, which is exactly what Duke wanted them to do. UNC was up 28-18, then proceeded to take 10 jumpers or threes compared to just 2 layups or dunks and the next thing you know they were down 52-44 at half. At one point, they missed 4 straight jumpers, while Duke went on a 9-0 run.

Unfortunately for Duke, that trend did not continue in the second half. Eventually UNC figured out how to use their superior size & athleticism and the guards started driving to the basket and they also went to their big guys more. In fact, I counted 13 layups or dunks by UNC in the second half compared to just 5 in the first half. UNC made the proper adjustments in the second half and there was nothing Duke could do about it.

The good news for Duke is that most teams are not as athletic and talented as UNC. However, I have a hard time believing Duke can win a national championship if they have to go against teams like UNC, UConn, Pitt, etc. With the right matchups, they could certainly win it all, but I wouldn't be surprised if a more atheltic, lesser consistent team puts things together against them in the tournament and knocks them off either. I think they are more likely to get knocked off early then to win the National Championship. The final result will probably be somewhere between those two outcomes with Duke topping out in the Elite 8.