{"id":1207,"date":"2011-03-05T22:49:22","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T03:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capitalsports.us\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2011-03-05T22:55:16","modified_gmt":"2011-03-06T03:55:16","slug":"improbably-tar-heels-whip-duke-for-acc-regular-season-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=1207","title":{"rendered":"Improbably, Tar Heels whip Duke for ACC regular season title"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Before the season only one basketball writer picked North Carolina to win the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season and he tried to renege saying it was a mistake. Improbably, the Tar Heels whipped defending national champion Duke in Chapel Hill 81-67 to win the ACC regular season title. <\/p>\n

The two teams came into the game with 13-2 marks and Carolina had blown a 16-point lead in the first matchup between the two teams. The game was important enough that UNC coach Roy Williams seriously considered not starting all his seniors, a school tradition. In the end, he started the three walk-on seniors along with transfer senior Justin Knox, a first for all four.<\/p>\n

The walk-ons left the game after a minute and a half with a 3-0 Carolina lead. The Carolina fans were in a frenzy with the modest start that set the tone for the game.<\/p>\n

The game was close and went back and forth through the first 10 minutes of the game. Kendall Marshall hit a three midway through the first half to give Carolina a 23-21 lead and remarkably the Heels never trailed again. <\/p>\n

UNC worked the lead up to 14 late in the half after an 11-2 run with the last five straight points coming from Leslie McDonald.<\/p>\n

Carolina led 51-39 at the break but Duke came out hot in the second half and Carolina turned the ball over a couple of times and missed a couple of open shots. After two minutes, the Blue Devils had cut the margin to five at 51-46.<\/p>\n

A Harrison Barnes steal and layup, followed by a pair of free throws pushed the margin up to nine and then five minutes in he drilled a three to push the lead back up to 12 at 60-48.<\/p>\n

Curry’s sixth three pointer of the game pulled the Devils to within six at 64-58 but it never got closer. A Barnes dunk follow of his own miss got the margin back up to 12 with less than eight minutes to play. The lead stayed between 9 and 15 points the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

For more on the game, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before the season only one basketball writer picked North Carolina to win the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season and he tried to renege saying it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,79,1,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-duke-blue-devils","category-featured-stories","category-uncategorized","category-north-carolina-tar-heels","wpcat-82-id","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-1-id","wpcat-80-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1209,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions\/1209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}