Tag: Duke UNC

Coach K attends North Carolina game, Roach’s senior night

Five-time national champion Mike Krzyzewski showed up at Cameron on Saturday to support both Duke’s efforts against rival UNC and seniors like Jeremy Roach in their final home game.

What game between Duke and North Carolina would be complete without Coach K?

Legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski, who led Duke to five national titles across his four decades in Durham, sat courtside in Cameron Indoor once more on Saturday night.

Obviously, he was there to support his former team against their bitter rival, but given Saturday was the final game of the regular season, it doubled as senior night for Blue Devils like Jeremy Roach, who started his Duke career playing for Coach K.

The longtime Duke head coach hasn’t been a stranger since his retirement two years ago when he led the team to the Final Four in his last season, coming to support former star and current head coach Jon Scheyer a handful of times.

Roach embraced his former coach and Krzyzewski’s wife as he was honored before the game.

Roach is the final Duke player who started during the Krzyzewski era, bringing Coach K’s four-decade tenure to a final completion.

Cooper Flagg and other recruits attend UNC game at Cameron

Duke signee Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 recruit in the country, and several of his upcoming classmates showed up to support the Blue Devils against UNC on Saturday.

If you think you saw Cooper Flagg on your television during Duke’s regular-season finale against North Carolina, you aren’t going crazy.

The No. 1 recruit in the 2024 class and the leader of what’s shaping up to be a historically good freshman class made an unofficial visit to Durham over the weekend, attending the rivalry game against the Tar Heels to support his future school.

247Sports’ Adam Rowe reported that fellow signees Isaiah Evans, Patrick Ngongba II, and Darren Harris all also attended the game as an unofficial visit.

The quartet is part of a 2024 recruiting class that features five of the top 18 players in the country and six of the top 50.

Flagg and his teammates will be joined on the court next season by five-star center Khaman Maluach, the No. 3 overall recruit in the class who committed to Duke on Wednesday.

‘He’s not there yet’: Scheyer’s brief Caleb Foster update

Freshman guard Caleb Foster won’t be available for Saturday’s game against North Carolina, Jon Scheyer confirmed, and he remains very much in doubt for the postseason.

As most Duke fans suspected at this point, Caleb Foster’s regular season is officially over.

Head coach Jon Scheyer confirmed on Thursday that Foster won’t be ready to go for the North Carolina game over the weekend.

“He’s not there yet,” Scheyer said.

Foster still hasn’t been cleared to return to practice, and with the ACC Tournament and NCAA Tournament imminent, there’s reason to question if he’ll play again this season.

The freshman guard has remained sidelined since he suffered an ankle injury in the second half against Wake Forest two weeks ago. Last week, Scheyer said the team would be without the 6-foot-5 guard “for some time” and said he was heartbroken for the first-year Blue Devil.

So far in Foster’s absence, Duke has cemented sophomore Tyrese Proctor as a starter and turned to freshmen forwards Sean Stewart and TJ Power for sizable bench minutes. Expect those trends to continue against the Tar Heels.

WATCH: Five-star Duke commit Isaiah Evans shows out in front of UNC fans

Duke five-star signee Isaiah Evans saw some fans donning Tar Heels jerseys at his high school game this week and let them know where he stands on the in-state rivalry.

Isaiah Evans looks poised to be a crowd favorite in Durham next season.

The top recruit and Duke signee played a high school game for North Mecklenburg earlier this week, and a crowd of North Carolina fans wearing Tar Heels colors crowded the front row.

Evans noticed.

The 6-foot-6 prospect scored 22 points and kept reminding the UNC fans that he saw and heard them, gesturing at them after made 3-pointers or clutch baskets. After one triple, he walked over to a fan in a North Carolina jersey and thumped his chest repeatedly.

Evans, a five-star prospect, committed to the Blue Devils last April and has already officially signed on to join Duke’s team next season. 247Sports ranks him as the 12th overall player in the class and the third-ranked small forward in the country.

In case there was any doubt after the game, Evans shared a photo to his account on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Evans is one of four five-stars in Duke’s 2024 class after Khaman Maluach committed on Wednesday.

ESPN College GameDay is coming to Durham for this weekend’s North Carolina game

The flagship ESPN pregame program will be in Durham for this weekend’s rivalry game and regular-season finale.

ESPN College GameDay is coming to Durham.

With Duke and North Carolina, two stories programs and intense in-state rivals, set to battle at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday, the college basketball world revolves around the upcoming contest.

The Blue Devils announced on social media that the flagship pregame show would be on campus for the game from 10 a.m. to noon.

A potential share of the ACC title hangs in the balance. North Carolina (24-6, 16-3) already clinched at least a share of the regular-season conference crown, but a Duke (24-6, 15-4) win would let the Blue Devils put one hand on the trophy.

The Tar Heels won the first meeting between the two back in February, a 93-84 triumph in Chapel Hill.

With both programs within the top 10 in the nation in every national ranking, a UNC sweep or a Duke win could provide major seeding implications for March Madness as well with both ACC powerhouses fighting for a No. 2 seed.

Four ESPN experts offer predictions for the ACC Tournament champion

ESPN’s four experts think Duke and UNC are the class of the conference, but which team do they favor more in the upcoming postseason?

With March underway, a panel of four ESPN experts released their predictions for every upcoming conference tournament.

Jeff Borzello, John Gasaway, Joe Lunardi, and Myron Medcalf broke down the upcoming ACC Tournament, and three of the four of them think Duke is the team to beat.

Borzello, Gasaway, and Medcalf all picked the Blue Devils to win the conference.

“The Blue Devils has woken up,” Borzello wrote. “They’ve bought in on the defensive end…and they’re really starting to shoot the ball effectively.”

Lunardi was the only holdout among the four, picking North Carolina to win the conference because of the talented duo of RJ Davis and Armando Bacot.

“Let’s not forget their Final Four experience just two years ago,” Lunardi added. “The best is yet to come for North Carolina.”

North Carolina, who plays Notre Dame on Tuesday, clings to a half-game lead in the ACC right now. The Tar Heels are 15-3 in conference play while the Blue Devils currently sport a 15-4 record against ACC opponents.

Duke rises two spots to No. 8 in USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll

The Blue Devils won both of their games last week, climbing higher into the top 10 of the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll.

Duke rose two spots up to No. 8 in the latest USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll released on Monday.

The Blue Devils won both of their games last week in convincing fashion, first beating Louisville by 25 points on Wednesday before beating Virginia by the same margin on Saturday. They played both games in front of their home crowd at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Duke received 541 points in the voting, jumping Marquette and Kansas into the eighth spot.

Rival North Carolina, who comes to Durham for the regular-season finale on Saturday, finished one spot above the Blue Devils in seventh.

The top four of Houston, Connecticut, Purdue, and Tennessee remained unchanged. Arizona, Iowa State, the Tar Heels, the Blue Devils, Marquette, and Creighton rounded out the top 10.

Andy Katz names Duke-UNC the best game of the week

Duke and UNC will meet on Saturday in Durham, and ACC supremacy will likely be in the balance in front of the Cameron Indoor crowd. For one college basketball writer, that’s enough to call it the game of the week.

Duke might have a game on Monday night, but it’s Duke-UNC week, and in the college basketball world, nothing else matches that.

College basketball reporter Andy Katz announced his top 10 games of the week on Monday and the looming battle between the Blue Devils and the Tar Heels was of course on top of the list.

“You already knew what number 1 had to be,” the NCAA tweet about the rankings read.

The two squads (barring something unexpected from the Monday ranking releases) will likely meet as top-10 teams for the 50th time in the history of their rivalry and the second time this season after February’s battle in Chapel Hill ended with a 93-84 North Carolina victory.

The ACC regular-season title will probably hang in the balance on Saturday as well. The Tar Heels, currently 15-3 against conference opponents, cling to a one-game lead over Duke (14-4).

Should the Blue Devils defeat NC State on Monday, a win over UNC would give them at least a share of the conference crown.

Duke now favored to win ACC according to ESPN BPI

After a five-game win streak, the Blue Devils now sit atop the ACC and have the best chance to take the regular-season title via ESPN BPI.

After Duke won its fifth straight game on Wednesday night, a near-30-point blowout over Miami on the road, ESPN’s Basketball Power Index thinks the Blue Devils are the best team in the ACC.

The Blue Devils moved up two spots to 10th in the site’s rankings, jumping two spots ahead of the North Carolina Tar Heels to assume the highest rank of any team in the conference.

Duke has won 16 of its last 18 games now and eight of its past nine, while the Tar Heels have lost three of their past six games.

The strength of Duke’s team has always been its offense, and the Blue Devils rank seventh in the nation in the site’s offensive power index. The defense has lagged behind a little but still moved up to 21st in the site’s defensive rankings after a few solid showings in a row.

ESPN’s modeling has the Blue Devils projected to win 24.9 games and 15.9 games in conference play. Once you factor in Duke’s current record of 21-5 and 12-3 in the ACC with five games left, the site is projecting almost an exact 4-1 finish to the regular season.

North Carolina’s projections are 23.7 wins and 15.7 ACC wins, so the two are truly neck-and-neck down the final straight.

The only other ACC teams in the top 35 are Wake Forest (21st) and Clemson (22nd).

Duke above UNC and firmly within KenPom’s top 10 after Miami blowout victory

After a 29-point win over Miami, the Blue Devils are a top-10 team in adjusted efficiency…and they’re finally ahead of North Carolina.

The Blue Devils ripped Miami apart last night, shooting more than 50% from the floor and 45% from long-range in an 84-55 victory.

The full-court domination provided Duke’s largest margin of victory in conference play so far this season, and KenPom’s advanced metrics were clearly impressed by the victory.

The Blue Devils moved up to eighth in the nation in the site’s adjusted efficiency margin after the win, now the highest-ranked team in the ACC after they moved two spots above North Carolina.

Duke’s offense has consistently been one of the best in the country, and the Blue Devils are seventh with almost 1.21 adjusted points per possession.

However, the Duke defense really stepped up over the past few weeks, especially against Miami. The Blue Devils held one of the better offenses in the ACC to 55 points, including keeping star forward Norchad Omier to just nine points, and they’re now up to 22nd in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency.

The Blue Devils now only rank below Houston, Purdue, Connecticut, Arizona, Auburn, Alabama, and Tennessee.