College Basketball ACC Showdown – (14) North Carolina at (7) Duke
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
The North Carolina Tar Heels and the Duke Blue Devils will clash for the second time in 16 days this Saturday at 9 PM ET at the Cameron Indoor Stadium, in the last regular season game in the ACC.
Since late January the Tar Heels have been on fire, recording 12 wins in a row, including a 74-66 victory over Duke on February 20th. Last Sunday, North Carolina managed to beat Notre Dame 63-61 with a last second defensive stand.
“I said Saturday to have a really good year you’ve got to win some games ugly,” coach Roy Williams said. “I’m tired of winning games ugly. … I really thought we’d have a tremendous sense of urgency today. We played so much harder at practice yesterday than we did in the game today. We learned those lessons earlier in the season but we’ve let them slip by us here the last couple of games.”
Duke has dropped two of their last four games; their last loss came against Wake Forest on Wednesday with a surprising 82-72 result.
“I’m not sure that … we were as prepared from an emotional standpoint,” said associate head coach Steve Wojciechowski, who fill in for Mike Krzyzewski. “I don’t know if our guys had the needed edge to compete against a Wake Forest team that played their hearts out.”
Consider Duke is 1-7 ATS in its last 8 games when playing at home against North Carolina.
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
