North Carolina, behind a first-year Tar Heel and a fifth-year Tar Heel, handled rival Duke from beginning to end to win 93-84 in Chapel Hill. (2/3)
Fifth-year senior Armando Bacot controlled the inside, going 10 of 13 for 25 points and 10 rebounds while transfer Harrison Ingram controlled the rest of the floor, scoring 21 points on five three pointers.
“Armando was Armando. He was big time… It was one of his best games ever,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “Harrison has the ability to post up and make perimeter jump shots. That helps Armando to get free inside and opens up the lane to allow other guys to drive to the basket.”
Duke led 2-0 and that was it as the Tar Heels led for 38 minutes, stretching the lead to 10, 45-35 at the half.
Carolina extended the margin to 15 at 63-48 with 13:14 left when Ingram swished a 14-footer. Duke managed to cut it to eight at 77-69 with just over five minutes to go when McCain drilled a three from the left corner.
The margin mostly stayed between eight and 13 the rest of the way. A Bacot dunk in the closing seconds rounded out the scoring and put the Carolina crowd into an even bigger frenzy.
“You could feel it coming out of the tunnel. It just has a different feel,” Coach Davis said about the excitement in the building. “It was our best complete game all season. We were locked in. We especially did a good job defending without fouling and contesting their 3s.”
Coach Davis said Duke gets a lot of their threes in transition but since the Heels turned the ball over only five times and were able to get to the free throw line, the Devils weren’t able to get into transition often. And Duke ended just five of 19 from beyond the arc.
Despite the Tar Heels controlling the pace, the Blue Devils shot well, hitting well over 50 percent of their shots in the second half. Jared McCain led the way for the Blue Devils, now 16-5 overall and 7-3 in the ACC, with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Big man Kyle Filipowski had 22 points and five rebounds while Jeremy Roach added 20 points.
The Tar Heels, who also got 17 points from RJ Davis and 10 from Seth Trimble, improve to 18-4 and 10-1 in the ACC with a matchup against Clemson at home coming Tuesday night.
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