Brownlow: UNC gives Coach K a parting gift after all
Posted March 6, 2022 12:58 a.m. EST
Chapel Hill, N.C. — After his team had done what felt like the impossible, Hubert Davis sat down in front of less than a dozen reporters, rubbed his face, then started to laugh.
"I feel like I played 40 minutes," Davis said.
Everyone in Cameron Indoor Stadium did, whether they fan or staff member or coach or player.
It was not only an all-day affair to honor Mike Krzyzewski. It was a week's worth of build-up, the only "last" that could be known ahead of time.
The recently-retired Roy Williams' last game featured a blowout loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, which was a first for him. Even legends don't always get the "last" that they want.
Carolina-Duke games at Cameron are different than any other game in any other environment. Cameron is a place where press row includes occupational hazards like students painted in blue or clad in elaborate costumes bumping up against you for two hours. But for Carolina-Duke, it's a place where you might come home covered in blue paint instead. It's a place where you'll catch a few errant elbows to the head. It's a place where you have to trust that the students behind you won't suddenly push forward, crushing you against the media table. Your ears ring for hours afterwards and the arena crackles with buzz and anticipation before and during the game. Every moment feels heightened. Your butt goes numb; your back aches; you pour sweat from places you didn't even know could sweat.
Now imagine multiplying that ten fold for this game.
The buzz has been there and just kept building and building and building. Duke beating Carolina felt ... well, inevitable.
For once, none of the hype about the Duke-Carolina game had to do with ... Carolina. They were almost an afterthought. It was as if Duke could have been playing Boston College or Clemson or someone it doesn't have the kind of history with that it has with North Carolina.
"One of the things that we always talk about is to focus on the things that we can control. We weren't part of all the festivities. We weren't part of (ESPN's College) Gameday. Our focus was on our preparation and our practice to put us in a position to play our best. I kept giving them Proverbs 4:25, 'Keep your eyes straight ahead. Ignore all sideshow distractions.' Every day, on the practice plan, I put in Proverbs 4:25 and I said 'you guys just focus on the things that we need to focus on, let all that sideshow stuff go on and let's focus on what we need to do to put ourselves in a position to be successful.'"
For so long, Duke has been inevitable. CAMERON has been inevitable. But since last year's COVID season and then this year's Duke team struggling at home compared to on the road, it hasn't had that magic it once did. But it felt every bit like vintage Cameron in every single moment leading up to the game.
Media members dressed up more than they would normally. It's a special occasion. Fans were there for hours ahead of time, crowding the doors of Cameron Indoor hours before the staff allowed people in, waiting for the moment they could get in there and soak it up.
History hangs in the air in Cameron. Every modern intrusion feels overpowered by it — the loud, bass-thumping music; the snazzy highlight videos, all of it. Cameron will prevail. It always has. Why wouldn't it for the last game of a legend that has been at Duke longer than some of his players' parents have been alive.
From the first moment Carolina walked into Cameron, though? The Tar Heels were all business. Stoic. Calm. Resolute.
Nothing about this week has been about UNC. It wasn't supposed to be. Why would it have been when the best coach of all-time was playing his final home game in a building that had played a role in making this program what it was?
The narrative all season has been that Carolina's program is in a state of limbo and that Duke was settled, even as Jon Scheyer was set to take over and no one knowing how the transition would go.
Every single time UNC has been hit in the mouth this season by a good team, it has folded. Davis knew that going in. He also knew that while his team has gotten tougher in recent weeks, they'd have to essentially do the toughness equivalent of going from multiplication straight to trigonometry.
Davis showed his team a documentary on the Lakers-Celtics rivalry. Before Game 2 of the '85 series between them, Riley told his team that there are times where they'll have to plant your feet, stand your ground and fight.
Those three things — plant your feet, stand your ground, and fight — are what Davis wrote up on the board.
Armando Bacot sat down to an even smaller crowd than Daivs did. Krzyzewski was delivering his postgame speech to the crowd, and most of the assembled media was understandably watching that.
Bacot has lived a thousand years in his not quite three at UNC, going through a horrible year in 2020 that ended in a global pandemic, an up-and-down year last year that ended in disappointment, and then a slightly better but still up-and-down year this year.
The first thing he did after making his final case for ACC Player of the Year with a 23-point, 7-rebound, 2-block and 2-steal performance?
He found Davis in the locker room and broke down crying on his shoulder.
Bacot knew one thing before the game. He knew that his team had to win either the fight or the game. They hadn't even started the fight in the first game, a game Duke won by 20 and wasn't that close.
Bacot hasn't stopped thinking about that game ever since. "It's North Carolina," he said. "Losing a game like that, it's something that we were embarrassed of."
Now, he was a huge part of a win over Duke in one of the more important home games in Duke history.
This team showed what it was capable of doing. It has grown throughout the year, and that growth for teh first time feels like it might not be interrupted by an unexpected stumble.
It still could be, of course. As Krzyzewski himself said after the game, "we can all be beaten by human nature."
But they'll always have this moment.
Brady Manek thanked his head coach as the game wound down for letting him be part of this moment. The Oklahoma transfer made Davis cry talking about how much he'd meant to the program in his short time in it earlier this week.
Davis instead thanked him for all he's done.
Last time against Duke, Bacot — a better post defender than Manek — started out on Duke's Paolo Banchero and picked up two quick fouls.
This time, Manek ended up guarding him. They knew they might give up points. Manek knew that. He just had to make it difficult for him.
And Banchero, who looked on the verge of going into complete takeover mode in the first half, made just 4 of 13 shots in the second half.
"I was just playing tough, trying to hold my ground," Manek said. "He's a really good player."
There have been doubts expressed both publicly and privately about whether or not Davis was the right choice to replace Roy Williams. Some of those doubts were expressed before he'd coached a single game.
Davis had something to prove too, although he didn't see it that way.
He wanted this for his team. After every befuddling loss, he's sat in front of the media and admitted he doesn't know how or why.
But this game, it all clicked. Strategy, motivation, inspiration, attitude — it all aligned for one perfect night for this team, a group that hasn't exactly had the kinds of moments most Carolina basketball players do.
Davis said after the game that he and his coaching staff like Jeff Lebo and Sean May have shared all the special moments they had while they played at Carolina with their team. But the group hadn't had their own signature moment yet. Even beating Duke last year hardly counted, considering Duke wasn't that good.
But this year's Duke team IS that good. And it was Krzyzewski's last game. It was a win that solidified Carolina's NCAA Tournament chances, and a win that devastated the emotions of UNC's biggest rival.
"It's probably one of the greatest Carolina wins that wasn't a national championship," Bacot said.
It's hard to argue with that.
A month ago when Duke and Carolina faced off in Chapel Hill in what would be Krzyzewksi's final game in the Smith Center, everyone wondered what the gift or celebration the Tar Heels had planned for him.
They showed a picture of Krzyzewski and recently retired Roy Williams with their successors, Jon Scheyer and Hubert Davis, but that was it.
ESPN's Wright Thompson wrote last week that people on Duke's staff bristled at this snub at the time.
Turns out, UNC had a little something to give Krzyzewski after all.
