Holliday: With Duke in the lead, ACC teams sprint to the finish
Posted February 24, 2022 3:21 p.m. EST
Somebody ring the bell please! We’ve spent weeks watching 15 ACC teams compete in a grueling long distance race. Is it like a 5K? Is it more like a 10K? Take your pick, but don’t forget Coach K!
Nine of the 15 have fallen back in the pack. Some are even close to getting lapped. (I’m talking about you Georgia Tech and NC State.) But as the headwinds build along the final straightaway, six teams still have a chance to win or at least tie for the top spot.
Check that! Wednesday night losses by Virginia (not unexpected) and Wake Forest (very unexpected) have eliminated those teams from the regular season chase, though with a late surge they still have a chance to sneak into the top four.
Duke is the favorite to reach the finish line first. The Blue Devils have not won the ACC regular season since assistant coach Jon Scheyer was still playing – back in 2010. This Duke team has made finishing first an important goal in Mike Krzyzewski’s final season.
Should Duke stumble – remember the Blue Devils play two more road games before the home finale March 5 – three rivals have a chance to move up: Notre Dame, with four losses, and Miami and UNC with five losses apiece. Wake Forest and Virginia now have seven losses, and their upward mobility in the league standings is now limited.
More than just the ACC regular season title is at stake here. NCAA consideration looms large. While Duke, Wake Forest, Miami and Notre Dame are in solid shape – the Blue Devils are currently a two seed, while the other three are probably nine seeds – UNC’s NCAA chances still look tenuous. And Virginia is currently not in the field at all, #82 in the NET.
There is also the matter of ACC Tournament seeding. The top four will get two days off in Brooklyn rather than one. Higher ACC seeding lessens the chance of a bad loss and also would better position teams for a deep ACC Tournament run, which would then positively impact NCAA prospects.
Duke win over Virginia narrows Cavs road to NCAA Tournament
Duke, of course, has the best prospects, especially after escaping Charlottesville with a 65-61 win. Virginia had won five of six in February in the run up to the rematch with Duke, including two over Miami plus the last second thriller in Cameron. The Cavs needed a Duke sweep to move the needle in the NET, but Jeremy Roach and A.J. Griffin made sure Duke would remain ACC front runner.
Roach entered the game at the John Paul Jones Arena about seven minutes in, and promptly drained a three, blunting the momentum of Kihei Clark’s assault from beyond the arc. Clark made 6-8 in the first half and at one point personally led Duke on the scoreboard 18-17. Roach, however, helped slow Clark over the final 24 minutes. The UVA senior did not make a single three in that time span.
Also, Roach hit the jumper which gave Duke its first lead in the game; and he took a pass from Paolo Banchero which led to a layup and another Duke lead. Roach had as much to do as any Duke player with the Blue Devils’ snatching a 30-25 halftime lead.
In the second half, Roach, Wendell Moore, and Trevor Keels kept the lid on the lethal Virginia backcourt. Beekman scored 9 of his 11 points, but Clark only scored 7 after intermission. Meanwhile, Duke’s packed in defensive interior allowed five baskets to the Cavs’ frontcourt star Jayden Gardner, but giving virtually nothing else to anyone. Virginia dominated Duke in the paint in that upset at Cameron, but the Blue Devils denied that access on the Cavaliers’ home court. As a result, Duke never relinquished its second half lead, though the Cavs stayed within striking distance the entire time.
Ultimately, the Blue Devils won with an offensive flourish. Leading by a scant one point after Banchero missed the front end of a one and one, the Devils scored on their final seven possessions. Griffin, just 1-8 until the late stages, hit two threes and a jumper from the short corner. He also forced a turnover, and that was huge, as the Cavaliers scored five times on the other six trips down court. Duke won on the strength of those seven straight scores offensively and the two stops in Virginia’s last seven possessions. This might have been Duke’s most important win of the ACC season.
Devils will count on road strength in final stretch
For most of this league campaign, Duke has played better on the road than at home. Saturday’s game with Florida State followed the pattern until late in the first half. The gritty Seminoles, who played in Cameron without five players who had started games, then lost star freshman big man John Butler to the bench after he committed two fouls in the game’s first 1:16!
Yet the Seminoles created for themselves a red hot start. Florida State’s reserves made 15 of their first 20 shots, and staked FSU to the early lead. Not until Joey Baker was inserted into the Duke lineup at the under 8 time out could Duke begin to counter the unlikely FSU surge.
Baker was something though, burying three straight threes. By halftime Duke led 52-41 and the Blue Devils and their fans could relax.
Duke still struggled a bit on the defensive end after intermission. FSU, which was so cold the previous week at UNC, continued to make shots and finished the game in Cameron at 50%. But the Blue Devils’ offense could play much more freely with a double digit lead. The Devils cranked up their powerful transition game, and really passed the basketball, 25 assists on 32 baskets.
The five starters and Baker all finished in double figures. Paolo Banchero, who has struggled with his shooting of late, led Duke scorers with 17 points. Banchero made three consecutive dunks in the second half to finish 6-12 from the field. However he was 0-3 from three.
Michael Savarino, Coach K’s grandson, made the most of his moment beyond the arc, drilling a three in the final minute, just moments before Michael Krzyzewski walked off the court that bears his name for the second to last time as head coach.
Trips to Syracuse and Pitt remain for Duke, prior to the much anticipated home finale against North Carolina. That’s all that’s left of Coach K’s final slate of scheduled games.
Tar Heels need more wins
UNC’s dreadful loss to Pittsburgh untethered what until that point was a pretty certain bid to the NCAA Tournament. To undo the damage of that Quad 4 defeat, the Tar Heels must likely win out between now and the March 5 meeting at Duke.
So far so good for Hubert Davis’ team. Carolina followed its desperately needed Quad 1 win at Virginia Tech with a tense triumph at home against Louisville just 48 hours later. Neither team led by more than four or five points in this game until the final minute.
Carolina’s “Iron Five” starting lineup averaged 36 minutes per player at VT. Monday night the Tar Heels again averaged 36 per starter, going against a Louisville team down on its late game luck but very deep in talent. I mean the Cardinals piled up 23 bench points to just 2 for the Heels.
Louisville also took charge of the paint in the first half. The Cards rang up 18 points in the lane in the first 20 minutes to just 12 for UNC. The Tar Heels put up a whopping 18 three point shots. Though they made six, Davis told his team at halftime to start attacking the basket and try to draw some Louisville fouls.
The strategy worked. With R.J. Davis and Caleb Love driving through the seams in the Cardinals’ defense, the Tar Heels made 11-15 shots from inside the arc in the second half. And since Louisville committed its seventh foul soon at about the seven minute mark, UNC picked up more points at the free throw line, going 9-9 from the charity stripe after intermission.
Carolina’s only second half three pointer came from Leaky Black, a reputed non-shooter, who through hard work has raised his marksmanship beyond the arc to 41%. That three ball tied the game. Love then made a steal and fed Black on the fast break. Leaky dunked it and the crowd exploded. Black was the only starter who did not score in double figures, but his seven points were enough, especially when coupled with his defense.
And defense down the stretch probably prevented a Quad 3 loss. Over the last seven minutes, UNC held U of L to 2-10 from the field with three turnovers. The Cardinals made two three pointers, but got completely away from their inside game, which was so effective in the first 33 minutes.
Finally, UNC won because of offensive execution in the final five minutes. Davis stole a pass and went coast to coast in transition to break a 60-60 tie. Brady Manek hit a short jumper. 64-60. Then after Malik Stewart made a rare U of L three-the Cards were just 7 of 28-Davis orchestrated the play of the game. R.J. drove the lane, unable to see the basket or an open Armando Bacot because of Louisville’s big defenders. But he could see Manek and dished, with Manek swiftly dealing the basketball to Bacot for a dunk. Give Davis a hockey assist.
Caleb Love then finished off the Cardinals with two drives to the basket; one resulted in a field goal, and the other produced two free throws. UNC scored on five of its last eight possessions to close out the game. But again, that opportunity only presented itself because of UNC’s defense starting at about the seven minute mark.
Bacot put together another double double, giving him 21 for the season, just two shy of Brice Johnson’s record. Manek scored 17 points and had a hand in some of the game’s biggest plays. Davis played a near perfect second half: 2-3 from the floor, 4-4 from the line, two assists and three steals. Love, as often happens had some negative plays to go with his many positive plays. Caleb committed seven turnovers and missed 6-7 threes, with one of those misses igniting a Louisville fast break. In fairness, Love was probably tired. He played all 40 minutes. And also, Love was golden in the final minute as he was at Clemson. And Virginia Tech.
The biggest part of Carolina’s week came Saturday at Blacksburg. The Tar Heels snapped Virginia Tech’s six game winning streak, and picked up a much needed Quadrant 1 victory.
Despite the Hokies 16-11 record, VT ranked 37th at the time in the NET, and any road win over a team ranked 1-75 counts as a Quad 1 win. The Sunday morning NET rankings also counted UNC’s win over then #29 Michigan as a Quad 1 win, but that was before Sunday’s contretemps at Wisconsin, where Wolverines’ Coach Juwan Howard slapped Badgers’ assistant Joe Krabbenhoft in the head during the post game handshake line. Now Howard is suspended and it’s difficult to see anything but a negative trajectory for Michigan going forward, although the Wolvers did beat Rutgers Wednesday night and are still ranked just slightly outside the top 30 at #33. If the Maize and Blue should sneak back into the top 30 by some chance, UNC would get a second Quad 1 win. Seems unlikely but who knows. In any event, the Tar Heels’ win at VT was critical.
The key to victory in Blacksburg? Defending the three point line. UNC ranks near the bottom of the league in three point defense, allowing opponents to shoot 38%. Saturday though, the red hot Hokies shot just 19%, hitting a paltry 5-26. Hubert Davis made the decision not to double team Tech’s talented big men, Keve Aluma and Justin Mutts. Those two combined for 26 points as VT shot 50% from inside the arc. But the Hokies continued to fire up threes—Hunter Cattoor and Nahiem Alleyne shot a combined 2-12; also UNC rebounded more than 80% of VT’s misses, producing mostly one and done possessions.
Offensively, Love played his best game as a Tar Heel, handing out seven assists against just two turnovers. He scored 21 points, 3-8 from three, and importantly, 3-4 from two point territory where he has struggled mightily for weeks. His play also helped UNC build an 11-0 advantage in fast break points and a 38-30 halftime lead.
Virginia Tech slowed the game down after intermission, but again defense was key. The Tar Heels held the Hokies to a 27-27 standoff in the second half and left Blacksburg with an eight point win in their pockets.
UNC’s next two opponents, NC State, and Syracuse, both have outstanding three point shooters. Davis might want to consider more of that beefed up perimeter defense that stopped Virginia Tech and Louisville. The Tar Heels now have 20 wins for the first time since 2019. But due to the ACC’s tenuous status with the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee-at least based on the rankings-20 wins this season for the Tar Heels are not enough.
