Game Thread [2022-23] at North Carolina

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Saturday, March 4, 6:30pm ET, ESPN
Dean E. Smith Center

Duke would be wise to gift Hubert Davis a sorely needed win to secure an NCAA Tournament berth.

A refresh of the "winner of the 2nd Duke/UNC game goes further in the postseason" phenomenon:

2022
Winner of the 2nd game: UNC
Winner's postseason: UNC lost in title game
Loser's postseason: Duke lost in F4

2021
UNC
UNC lost in R1
Duke no postseason

2020
Duke
Duke no postseason
UNC no postseason
Note: I consider 2020 to be aligned with the phenomenon, given UNC definitely would not have qualified for the NCAA Tournament (UNC would not have qualified for the NIT, either), and Duke definitely would have qualified for the NCAA Tournament

2019
UNC
UNC lost in S16
Duke lost in E8
Note: Zion Williamson did not play in the 2nd game but played in the postseason

2018
Duke
Duke lost in E8
UNC lost in 2nd round

2017
UNC
UNC won title
Duke lost in 2nd round

2016
UNC
UNC lost in title game
Duke lost in S16

2015
Duke
Duke won title
UNC lost in S16

2014
Duke
Duke lost in R1
UNC lost in R2

2013
Duke
Duke lost in E8
UNC lost in R2

2012
UNC
UNC lost in E8
Duke lost in R1

2011
UNC
UNC lost in E8
Duke lost in S16

2010
Duke
Duke won title
UNC to NIT

2009
UNC
UNC won title
Duke lost in S16

2008
UNC
UNC lost in F4
Duke lost in R2

2007
UNC
UNC lost in E8
Duke lost in R1

2006
UNC
UNC lost in R2
Duke lost in S16

2005
UNC
UNC won title
Duke lost in S16

2004
Duke
Duke lost in F4
UNC lost in R2

 

[deeyoukayeee]

Wow. Not sure what the caption would be, but cropping that face and the flowing hair needs to be done. 'Manek Believe'?

 

[DurhamSon]

Weird game. Very unlikely to move seeding meaningfully or grab a bye, so kind of a meaningless game for us while being essentially a tournament game for UNC just to effectively keep their season alive. If Scheyer pulls this off, and I’d give us 50/50 odds, he gets an A- from me this year all things considered and I will be ready to believe we’ve shaken the program bugaboos from the K era where we just didn’t win these kind of games.

A close loss is fine too if just annoying as it probably punches their ticket (but it’s still just a Q1) however please don’t let these mediocre assholes blow us out again like in 2021

 

[CK86]

Feels like this is a guaranteed loss and that this will be their (unc) sparkplug to winning the ACC tournament and national championship. Can't stop destiny nor the greatest unc coach of all time Hubert Davis.

 

[uncy12]

Personally I think this Duke team matches up pretty well against UNC. Lively renders Bacot rather ineffective. I’ll have to check back but has Bacot ever had a big game against Duke when they have good big men? Really comes down to if Pete Nance and Leaky Black hit 3s.

 

[DurhamSon]

Personally I think this Duke team matches up pretty well against UNC. Lively renders Bacot rather ineffective. I’ll have to check back but has Bacot ever had a big game against Duke when they have good big men? Really comes down to if Pete Nance and Leaky Black hit 3s.

I don’t care about Armando one bit,last four years we’ve lived and died at the hands of Love and Black against you guys. And if we lose I expect it’s because they hit six or seven threes between them, again

 

[Devilsforlife]

I am definitely an unironic believer in the predictive value of the second Duke-UNC game. It just never lies, not even last year, so I’ll admittedly be concerned about them somehow advancing deeper in the NCAAT than us if they do win it (though I don’t see a FF for them at all, regardless). That said, we will be playing with house money given we won the first game at Cameron and have already punched our March ticket.

Senior Night wins @ UNC have also been a rarity for us for over 20 years now. We are 2-8 at the Dean Dome in such games since Battier and co. went in there and thrashed them in 2001, winning only in 2013 and 2015. If we do pull it off, I’ll start truly believing we can win 3-4+ NCAAT games.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

I've added the history of the 2nd winner phenomenon to the first post. The winner of the 2nd game has gone further in the postseason 16 out of 19 times since 2004 (I'm taking the liberty of counting 2020 among the 16).

 

[best4heisman]

I've added the history of the 2nd winner phenomenon to the first post. The winner of the 2nd game has gone further in the postseason 16 out of 19 times since 2004 (I'm taking the liberty of counting 2020 among the 16).

Quick correction is that Zion's shoe exploded in the 1st game in 2019. He didn't play at all in the 2nd game.

 

[Devilsforlife]

I've added the history of the 2nd winner phenomenon to the first post. The winner of the 2nd game has gone further in the postseason 16 out of 19 times since 2004 (I'm taking the liberty of counting 2020 among the 16).

Quick correction is that Zion's shoe exploded in the 1st game in 2019. He didn't play at all in the 2nd game.

Yeah, both 2019 UNC regular season games will always be asterisked to me. I’d say the main year the second game wasn’t predictive was 2006, as both teams were pretty much equally garbage in my mind in 2014.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

I've added the history of the 2nd winner phenomenon to the first post. The winner of the 2nd game has gone further in the postseason 16 out of 19 times since 2004 (I'm taking the liberty of counting 2020 among the 16).

Quick correction is that Zion's shoe exploded in the 1st game in 2019. He didn't play at all in the 2nd game.

Ah, yeah, I honestly don't even remember that after being reminded of it. I found myself having a really hard time remembering anything about the past few seasons besides 2022. Possibly old age and dementia, but I think it has more to do with COVID making two consecutive seasons ultimately meaningless to me.

 

[best4heisman]

Aside from the correlation with postseason success, they have really kicked our asses in the second game going back to 2004. Roy was a fucking buzzsaw.

 

[DurhamSon]

16/19 isn’t as predictive as I thought tbh, especially with all the caveats added. Probably will end up like the E8 streak where K never lost them essentially until 2013 and after when he started losing a bunch of them. Is this statistically much different than what we’d expect of the better team beating a worse team going into the game, if they played 19 times? Because looking at that list that’s basically what it is.

And if we do lose, it’s because we go out in the first round and UNC wins their play-in game and loses the next one, so just as meaningless as 2021.


The real weirdness is how dominant we’ve been in the February matchup with them and winning games against them we’ve had no business doing so

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Along those lines, it would be surprising to me to see Duke make much noise in in the NCAAT if they don't win this game. There's nothing special about this challenge. It's a bad UNC team with lots of bad players and much less room for improvement due to how old their best players are compared with Duke's core. Duke should be the better team now, and if they still haven't figured out how to perform on the road at this point, it's not going to be any different with 80-90% of the crowd against them in the NCAAT.

 

[Devilsforlife]

Aside from the correlation with postseason success, they have really kicked our asses in the second game going back to 2004. Roy was a fucking buzzsaw.

UNC was better than Duke overall post-2004 and it was part of what made the post-peak stage of K’s career so draining.

 

[Devilsforlife]

16/19 isn’t as predictive as I thought tbh, especially with all the caveats added. Probably will end up like the E8 streak where K never lost them essentially until 2013 and after when he started losing a bunch of them. Is this statistically much different than what we’d expect of the better team beating a worse team going into the game, if they played 19 times? Because looking at that list that’s basically what it is.

And if we do lose, it’s because we go out in the first round and UNC wins their play-in game and loses the next one, so just as meaningless as 2021.


The real weirdness is how dominant we’ve been in the February matchup with them and winning games against them we’ve had no business doing so

To this point, the higher ranked team on KP (at the end of the season, at least) is 15-4 in the second game going back to 2004. Losses were 2022, 2019, 2011 and 2006.

 

[LastHearth]

I've added the history of the 2nd winner phenomenon to the first post. The winner of the 2nd game has gone further in the postseason 16 out of 19 times since 2004 (I'm taking the liberty of counting 2020 among the 16).

Quick correction is that Zion's shoe exploded in the 1st game in 2019. He didn't play at all in the 2nd game.

Yeah, both 2019 UNC regular season games will always be asterisked to me. I’d say the main year the second game wasn’t predictive was 2006, as both teams were pretty much equally garbage in my mind in 2014.

2014 Duke was Kenpom 8th and UNC 29th.

This year Duke is Kenpom 33rd and UNC 45th.

I think this is much more of a both teams equally garbage season than 2014.

Although looking back on it, Duke's season in 14 looks much better on paper than memory because the defense completely collapsed at the ends of the season, from the 2nd to last regular season game where they lost to Wake to the eventually 1st rd loss to Mercer, Duke played 6 straight games where their Adjusted D was over 1. A feat that I don't think has even been matched elsewhere in K's career. Even the 2021 team's worst stretch was 4 straight games of over 1, and that was early in the season. The 2021 team only allows over 1 AdD in 2 of its last 9 games.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

go duke beat chapel college

 

[Rollins]

looks great

 

[DurhamSon]

^^^^ Sounds pretty definitive he's gone, then

@uncy12 it's just Davis and Puff coming back among the upperclassmen?