NCAA – Duke defeats UNC for ACC Tournament

Only a week ago, the North Carolina Tar Heels went on to defeat the Duke Blue Devils in one thrilling, winner-takes-all game for the Atlantic Coast Conference outright regular season title. The Tar Heels made it look all too easy. But perhaps the Tar Heels took just too many chances against a very solid and well paced team.

This time around, the roles were going to change and the Blue Devils would show no mercy against the Tar Heels. The second-seeded Duke Blue Devils were up by 18 points by halftime, and truth be said, they never let the Tar Heels get even close in the second half. The Tar Heels had managed to rally their way out of a mess in the last three games of the tournament, but not against head coach Mike Krzyzewski and his brilliant Blue Devils.

Seniors Nolan Smith and Kyle Singer from Duke had a flawless performance at Greensboro, North Carolina. The two seniors who led the 5th seeded Blue Devils to the National Championship brought on their A-game and clearly overpowered the Tar Heels, not only to win the ACC Tournament but also to do it while crushing their biggest rival. Nolan Smith had 20 points, 4 rebounds, 10 assists and Kyle Singer had 11 points, 8 rebounds and 1 assist for the 75-58 win over North Carolina, securing Duke’s record-breaking 19th ACC Tournament Title.

The Blue Devils have now won their third straight ACC Tournament and 10th in the last 13 years, proving that Coach K. and the guys from Duke take this tournament just as seriously as they take the NCAA Tourney.

North Carolina’s fans were hoping that once again the Tar Heels would put together one of those amazing come-from-behind wins that had kept them alive in this year’s tournament. Check it out: North Carolina had rallied from a 19-point deficit in the final 10 minutes to beat Miami on a last-play layup in the quarterfinals. On their next game the Tar Heels rallied from 14 down to force the game into overtime and beat Clemson in the semifinals. This time, the Blue Devils were going to stop North Carolina on its feet, as the Tar Heels got no closer than nine after halftime.

Seth Curry had 20 points last week when the Tar Heels beat Duke. This time around Curry only had 11, including a 3-pointer after the Tar Heels had pulled to within nine. John Henson was the strongest Tar Heel of the night with 10 points, 18 rebounds and 2 assists. As for the rest of North Carolina’s squad, Harrison Barnes had a very hard picking up his tempo despite scoring a tournament freshman record 40 points on his previous game. Barnes finished the game with 16 points and Tyler Zeller had 14 but to be fair, we must say that North Carolina shot 34 percent (against 50 percent from Duke) and never looked like the team that had managed to win 19 of their last 21 games.

The Duke Blue Devils still lost their race for the top seed in the NCAA Tournament to the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Blue Devils are now seeded No.3 for the March Madness Tourney, following the Kansas Jayhawks who is second and just in front of Notre Dame, which is 4th.