Tag: UNC Tar Heels

Duke now top ACC team at No. 6 in latest D1Baseball poll, the highest rank in school history

Duke ascends to No. 6 in latest D1Baseball poll after a series victory over top-ranked Wake Forest, the highest ranking in program history.

Duke’s series win over the then-No. 1 Wake Forest Demon Deacons sent some pretty sizable ripples through the rest of the collegiate baseball landscape.

The series win vindicated Duke as a team that everyone should be cognizant of going forward, and it also sent a message to the rest of the ACC that things will not be a breeze for Wake Forest to just coast to a regular-season title.

Duke made the trip from Durham, NC, to Winston-Salem this past weekend and took two of three from the previously top-ranked Demon Deacons. That win had a massive effect on the latest D1Baseball poll.

Duke is now the highest-ranked ACC team in the country, having leaped from 12th to 6th, which marks the highest ranking in program history by D1Baseball.

Duke had a 3-1 week in total, which started with a 28-2 dismantling of the Appalachian State Mountaineers in the middle of the week before they made their trip to take on Wake Forest to open ACC play.

Arkansas is now the No. 1-ranked team in the country. Wake Forest dropped six spots to seventh.

Elsewhere in the ACC, Clemson remains steady at 10th after another undefeated week of action. NC State moved up one spot to No. 13 in the newest poll. UNC also moved up one place, going from 16th to 15th. Virginia suffered two losses to the Miami Hurricanes last week and fell four spots from 13th to 17th.

In their latest rankings, Baseball America ranked Duke No. 3, and Perfect Game ranked the Blue Devils No. 5.

The Blue Devils will continue its journey to ascend into the top five with two midweek games against Rider starting Tuesday. They follow that up with another top-10 matchup as Clemson gets set to come to town to start a three-game set on Friday.

The best photos from Saturday’s game against North Carolina

The best photos from Duke’s final night at Cameron Indoor Stadium in the 2023-24 season.

Duke and the Cameron Crazies got one last game at the beloved stadium on Saturday night.

Duke may have lost to hated rival North Carolina, an 84-79 game doomed by a nightmarish opening five minutes. However, the Blue Devils fans got to fill the bleachers one last time with their face paint and the best outfits of the year.

The game also served as senior night, since it was the last home game of the season. Four-year starter Jeremy Roach was honored for his exceptional Duke career, and Ryan Young and Spencer Hubbard shared the moment as they stood with their teammates and framed jerseys.

Here are the best photos from Duke’s last home game of the 2023-24 season.

The man in the mirror is the final hurdle Duke must clear as they prepare for rematch with UNC

The Duke Blue Devils have to win against themselves in order to win against UNC.

Sir Edmund Hillary said it best: “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”

It feels like the perfect quote to summarise the Duke basketball experience this year and focus on what’s ahead of the team as they prepare to try and get revenge for an early February loss to their rivals, UNC. The Blue Devils have been fighting the team in the mirror all season. It’s time they conquer that.

If they can, the Blue Devils will head to Washington, D.C., for the ACC Tournament, with their share of the 2023-2024 ACC regular season title; if the Tar Heels win, they are the outright title winners. Losing that also likely eliminates Duke from having any shot at a 2-seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.

For Duke, it’s simple: UNC is the best opponent (not named Arizona or Baylor) on their schedule. They beat Baylor in Madison Square Garden, which stands out as a great Quad 1 win, but the Blue Devils know they need more. Hubert Davis’ team is undoubtedly in the Final Four-capable tier of teams, so a win against North Carolina would be the perfect confirmation that this Duke team has grown and evolved and is playing its best basketball.

It’s easier said than done, as UNC will have everything to play for on top of the sheer fact that this is a rivalry, and it could be Armando Bacot and RJ Davis’ last game against Duke ever. They’ve ruined big nights in Cameron Indoor Stadium before.

Duke played a rough basketball game against UNC in the first round in Chapel Hill. They were not strong on the court, and their defensive plan wasn’t strong. Ultimately, the Heels just played better.

Duke shot 26.3% from three, compared to almost 38% from UNC. Harrison Ingram was the thorn in Duke’s side from the outside, going 5/9 from deep. Duke also had 11 turnovers, which led to 19 UNC points. Eight of those turnovers were live-ball, which makes it even harder to get back on defense against a transition offense-focused team like UNC.

Kyle Filipowski struggled with foul trouble, and when his team needed him to contain Armando Bacot without a double team, he couldn’t. Tyrese Proctor had one of his worst games, registering just two points and one assist on 1/6 shooting in 26 minutes.

So, what has to change this time around? Duke has to put together a complete performance as they have in games on the road at Miami, NC State, Virginia Tech, or as they did recently at home versus Virginia. This team has shown that it can play a full 40 minutes on both ends of the court, and when they can, they will blow teams away, as eight of their conference wins have been by 15 points or more.

Duke is a deeper team now. The bench has lengthened a much-needed development due to limitations with guys like Jaylen Blakes and Ryan Young. They are decent role players but certainly guys with deficiencies. The answers were the 6-foot-9 five-star freshman Sean Stewart and the 6-foot-8 four-star small forward TJ Power.

Power’s shooting ability is among the best on a team of great shooters this season, but the lack of opportunities hasn’t allowed him to showcase that. Stewart is hyper-athletic and an incredible shot disruptor combined with pure energy and hustle, allowing him to provide the energy on 50/50 plays Duke needs.

Each player has played at least 10 minutes in the last three games. Stewart had a season-high 26 minutes of game action at NC State, where he had his proverbial breakout game, scoring 12 points, five rebounds, three blocks, two steals, and two assists. He was a menace on defense, and four rebounds came on the offensive glass, giving Duke extra possessions.

They must be factors in this rematch, and the rest of the team needs to be more assertive with the ball. If Duke hadn’t been forced into so many live-ball turnovers, they could’ve shaved off at least six points they allowed. Tyrese Proctor must play better, especially considering Caleb Foster will still be out. He’s had some encouraging performances since being inserted back into the starting lineup with Foster out, and Monday night in Raleigh showcased that.

Kyle Filipowski needs to be a factor for the entire 40 minutes. Jon Scheyer must find a better way to defend Bacot while not allowing RJ Davis to explode. Do not respect Elliot Cadeau’s shot. Make him shoot more jumpers than layups, and respect Ingram as a solid spot-up shooter.

It won’t be easy, but Duke can beat UNC. Aside from the implications mentioned above about the ACC title, this win is about Duke playing well enough to beat an elite opponent as it pursues a sixth NCAA title in two weeks.

They missed the mark early against Arizona and in Chapel Hill. In both games, Duke was the loser, but there was a clear sense that Duke didn’t play well enough to beat that caliber of team. Can they conquer themselves and raise their level of play to conquer their goals? We’ll find out on Saturday.

Duke slides up one spot to 9th in latest AP Poll ahead of final week of regular season

Duke moves up to ninth in penultimate regular season Associated Press poll.

It is officially March, and we are less than two weeks away from Selection Sunday. Jon Scheyer’s team is playing some of their best basketball of the season, and they look like a team starting to find itself at the perfect time. They enter Monday in second place in the ACC with a week ahead of them that features two games against two of their fiercest ACC rivals, NC State and UNC.

Duke will enter their Monday night matchup on the road against NC State as the 9th-ranked team in the country after they moved up one spot in the latest and penultimate AP poll of the 2023-2024 regular season.

Houston survived a valiant upset bid from Oklahoma on Saturday in head coach Kelvin Sampson’s return to Norman thanks to the late-game heroics of soon-to-be All-American guard Jamal Shead. The Cougars won 87-85. UCONN moved to number two as they secured the Big East regular season title, while Purdue slid one spot to third in the latest poll. Tennessee remained in contention for a number-one seed after they dispatched an electric Alabama team on Saturday in Alabama.

With Marquette’s loss to Creighton, the Golden Eagles fell to 8th, allowing Arizona, Iowa State, and the Tar Heels to take over the fifth, sixth, and seventh spots, respectively. With Duke at nine, Creighton rounds out the top ten after they moved up 12 spots.

Duke and UNC remain the lone ACC teams in the top 25, while none of the other ACC teams are even receiving votes. If Duke takes down NC State and beats North Carolina at home, the Blue Devils will earn at least a share of the ACC regular season title and should put themselves firmly in contention for a two-seed with a great showing in the ACC Tournament.

After series win over Akron, Duke remains steady at No.12 in D1Baseball Top 25

Duke remains at No. 12 in D1Baseball ahead of week that features five games. Three of those games are against top ranked Wake Forest.

Despite losing its first game this past weekend, Chris Pollard’s baseball team is a crisp 10-1 and remains the no. 12 team in the latest D1Baseball poll released Monday morning.

D1Baseball released its top 25 this week, with no movement at the top as every team in the top 14 remained the same from last week’s poll. There are still six ACC schools in. the top 25, with Wake Forest pacing the country at number one. Clemson is still the 10th-ranked team in the country after they went 3-0 last week with two big wins over their biggest rivals, the South Carolina Gamecocks. Much like Duke, Virginia suffered its first loss last week, yet they remain at 13. NC State went an impressive 5-0 and remains steady at 14. The Tarheels of North Carolina were the only ACC team to slide as they fell one spot to 17th despite going 5-0 last week themselves.

Duke has two mid-week games this week against Appalachian State and Georgetown before the Blue Devils make their first proper road trip this upcoming weekend to Winston-Salem to take on the top-ranked Demon Deacons to kickstart off conference play.

Duke was 1-2 in their home series versus Wake Forest last year, with both losses to Wake Forest being by two runs apiece, sandwiched between an 8-1 win.

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.

Men’s Basketball: Duke’s ACC opponents for 2024 are set

The ACC released its conference opponent schedule for 2024-25 on Thursday evening. See who Duke will host and travel to here.

The Duke Blue Devils have officially entered the month of March, which means things will get serious for them on the basketball court. The Blue Devils have just three regular-season games remaining before they play in the ACC Tournament and, after that, the NCAA Tournament for a chance to win the program’s sixth national title.

Even while that takes place, there’s an eye on next year’s team as the Blue Devils discover who their conference opponents will be for the 2024-25 season.

Next year is a big year for the ACC as it welcomes three new teams to the conference: SMU, Stanford, and California.

The expansion means some tweaks to the normal ACC schedule, however, and the conference revealed each team’s ACC foes for the 2024-25 season on Thursday.

Duke’s 20-game schedule for 2024-25 features two two-game series (home and away) versus its two current partners, North Carolina and Wake Forest. The Blue Devils are 1-2 currently this year against both teams. They also have a home-and-away series with the Miami Hurricanes for next season.

Duke will host California at Cameron Indoor for the first time. The last time the schools played was in 2019 when Duke blew Cal out by 35 points in an 87-52 win in the 2K Empire Classic.

Florida State, NC State, Notre Dame, Pitt, Stanford, and Virginia Tech will all come to Cameron next year. Duke will travel for road games at Boston College, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Louisville, SMU, Syracuse, and Virginia next season.

Duke is 3-1 all-time against SMU in basketball. The Blue Devils’ road trip to SMU is only their second all-time, having played in Dallas on Dec. 8, 1977 – a game which Duke won by 24 points 91-67.

The ACC recently announced that, with the conference expanding to 18 members, only the top 15 teams in the conference will participate in the ACC Tournament next year, which is set to be played March 11-15 at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The full schedule will be announced early this fall, equipped with specific game dates, times, and networks.

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.

Duke now tied with North Carolina atop the ACC after Wednesday win

After a 29-point victory over Miami on Wednesday night, Duke is officially tied with North Carolina atop the ACC standings.

There’s officially a tie atop the ACC standings.

After falling as far as 2.5 games behind North Carolina after a loss in Chapel Hill to begin the month, Duke is now tied with the Tar Heels atop the conference leaderboard with a 12-3 record against ACC opponents.

The Blue Devils picked Miami apart on Wednesday night, winning by 29 points after shooting 52% from the floor and 45% from deep. Three different Duke starters scored at least 15 points during the game, and two other Blue Devils reached double-digits.

The win over the Hurricanes was Duke’s fifth consecutive victory, and head coach Jon Scheyer’s squad has now won 16 of its past 18 games. The Blue Devils’ only losses since December 2 came to Pittsburgh while missing two starters and against UNC.

North Carolina, for its part, was 10-1 in ACC play after the final buzzer sounded in its victory over Duke. However, two upsets in the next three games to Clemson and Syracuse prevented them from taking a stranglehold on the ACC.

Both teams have four mores games to play until then, but the conference seems headed for a March 9 battle in Cameron Indoor to decide the regular-season champion.

Duke moves ahead of North Carolina in latest AP Poll

The Associated Press released its newest Top 25 on Monday, and the Blue Devils jumped North Carolina to climb farther into the top 10.

The Associated Press released its latest top 25 on Monday, and like the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll shared on the same day, Duke took the mantle as the highest-ranked ACC team.

The Blue Devils moved up one spot to eighth in the rankings, receiving 1,116 points from the ballots after winning their fourth straight game on Saturday against Florida State.

Defending national champion Connecticut remained No. 1 unanimously with all 62 first-place votes. Houston, Purdue, Arizona, and Tennessee finished the top five in that order, followed by Iowa State, Marquette, the Blue Devils, Kansas, and North Carolina in the rest of the top 10.

The Tar Heels spent most of the season hovering within and around the top five, but UNC has since lost three of its past six games to slip down to 20-6 on the season. Duke, on the other hand, has lost just two games since December 2 to climb to 20-5 on the season even with a head-to-head loss to the Tar Heels.

No other ACC team made the top 25, but Virginia received the most votes of any team on the outside looking in. Pittsburgh and Clemson also received a handful of votes.