Final Four 2022: UNC proves spoiling Coach K’s home finale was no fluke by ousting Duke from NCAA Tournament

NEW ORLEANS – No schadenfreude reverberates in the college basketball ecosystem like Duke schadenfreude. So when rival North Carolina rolled into Cameron Indoor on March 5, trounced the Blue Devils by 13 points and spoiled Coach K’s final home game with his retirement looming, the result sent shockwaves throughout Tobacco Road that shook the landscape of the sport. 

Losing to a rival on its own is a tough pill to swallow. Losing to a North Carolina team that, at least at the time, was close to flirting with the NCAA Tournament bubble? For this star-studded Duke team? In K’s final game on the sidelines in Durham? Well, it was downright embarrassing — so much so that Krzyzewski issued a postgame apology to fans before being honored for his illustrious career.

But on Saturday night inside the Caesars Superdome, the Tar Heels proved that destruction of Duke was far from a fluke, as they bounced the Blue Devils from the Final Four 81-77 in the most-hyped college basketball game of the century. 

“In Durham, they had 52 points in the paint,” said UNC coach Hubert Davis. “We said, ‘Look, we’ve got to do a good job of keeping them away from getting layups and dunks and make them take contested outside jump shots.’ These guys were terrific defensively, and I’m so proud of them.” 

Duke still got to its spots and did damage in the paint — it finished with 48 to UNC’s 26 — but big man Mark Williams‘ early foul trouble sapped its low-post mojo early as UNC went right at him. The Blue Devils were forced into making shots on the perimeter, but didn’t oblige, going 5 of 22 from 3-point range.

“We had to stop them in transition,” said Tar Heels guard Caleb Love. “Once we stopped that and we got out in transition — because they aren’t really a good transition team — we got whatever we wanted.”

Love finished with a game-high 28 points and continued his postseason star turn, the second time in this NCAA Tournament he’s had 28 or more points and the third time in five games he’s scored more than 20. Love got whatever he wanted against Duke’s defense and picked up where he left off when they last met when he scored 22 points. His teardrop floater kept Duke’s defense on its heels, and his relentlessly deep range — he made three 3s, including the effective dagger with just under 25 seconds remaining — kept it honest. Pitted against a Duke roster with five potential first-round picks, Love, the former five-star prospect, stole the show.

Now the Tar Heels are moving on, and most threatening of all to KU’s title hopes on Monday night, Love is but one of the many stars of this show. On any given night, Love, RJ Davis, Brady Manek or Armando Bacot are liable to take over. The inside-out firepower this team has holstered is lethal. It’s just a matter of assessing matchups and determining for Davis how best to deploy his weapons.

“The beauty for us is that we have a number of guys that can shoot 3s,” said Davis. “We have a number of guys who can shoot the ball. Our emphasis is to attack the basket. We want to feed the ball down to Armando. I’ve always felt like working inside-out is the way for successful basketball, and that’s the way we’re going to do it.”

North Carolina is only the fifth No. 8 seed to advance to the title game in NCAA Tournament history, the lowest seed to ever advance that far into the bracket. Only one 8-seed — 1985 Villanova — has gone the distance. Yet on Monday, as it matches up with Kansas in a winner-take-all tussle, it will do so not as a Cinderella but as a formidable, respectable foe that found its groove down the stretch of the season and hasn’t been bested this tournament — a squad one win away from joining elite college basketball company. 

“Our belief was strong all year that we could get to this point,” said UNC big man Armando Bacot. “At some point, I mean I don’t know if it was belief or just us being delusional, but at every point in the season we know that if we came together as a team we could make it to the championship. And that’s what we did.”