UNC v. Duke Round 2 Preview
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s officially march and we’re all ready for the tournament. But with 3 more regular season days left, we gotta do a preview of UNC vs Duke round 2. Now this game always has a lot of implications just because of the immense rivalry that these two squads have but this game in particular is pretty important. For starters, Duke and capture a share of the ACC title with a win. Both teams are also on the bubble of their respected seeds. Duke is in between a 3 and 4 seed right now and UNC is 1 seed at the moment but could fall with a loss. Duke could propel themselves to a 3 seed with a win and a good performance in the ACC tournament. While both teams have been locks for the tournament for weeks, it’s still game that must be watched closely. Before we start to breakdown this saturday’s game, let’s look at what went down last month.
Round 1 Recap
Last month, when Duke pulled off the win, a lot went wrong for Carolina and a lot went right for Duke. First and foremost, UNC was missing a key piece to the board play in Isaiah Hicks. Most people, including myself, had picked Carolina to win merely based on the fact that they are such a superior rebounding team. But with Hicks out, Duke was able to win the battle on the boards and ultimately come out with a win. Carolina also could not knock down their shots and even worse, they were missing a lot of free throws. They were a dreadful 10 for 18 from the strike and they only made 4 3’s the entire game.
Duke on the other hand was knocking down everything they attempted. They hit an astounding 13 3’s on 27 attempts and made 13 of 16 free throws. But most impressive of all, Duke outrebounded arguably the best rebounding team in the country. Overall, Duke proved that they can play with anybody in the nation and nobody was going to argue that notion.
However, Duke needed to play lights out, they needed Carolina to miss at the line and from deep, and they needed their starting PF to be injured all the while playing at home with a great fan section, all to win by just 8 and will the battle on the glass by just 1.
I highly doubt that this game duplicates itself. With Hicks back, and playing at home, Carolina will most likely come away with a win. Although the Dean Dome isn’t known for it’s incredible student section, UNC is undefeated at home this year and I highly doubt that they’ll take their first loss their with a fully healthy lineup. But don’t just take my word for it, let’s look at why UNC will come out with the win.
Tale of the Tape
For starters, the matchups between the teams are pretty unbalanced. Sure, Allen and Kennard will shoot for a high percentage and Duke will make a lot of threes and various shots from the field. But they will have a ton of trouble scoring inside and with Hicks back in the lineup, they'll also have trouble getting second chance points. Even if Duke scores with the same efficiency that they did in the last game, they are bound to get outrebounded and UNC is unlikely to have such an inefficient game as they did last time out.
Duke also relied heavily on the all around dominance of Taytum and Jefferson, their small ball lineup. Sure, maybe it was able to work in the first game because they could exploit Luke May but with Hicks back in the lineup, they are not going to be able to dominate the glass like that again. With Hicks and Meeks back in the lineup, UNC will get a lot of second chance points and Taytum and Jefferson will have no answer for it.
Lastly, Duke will lose on saturday if they don’t figure out how to take care of the ball. They won the battle of the glass and shoot an obscene amount of threes along with Carolina misses free throws and not making any threes but they only won by 8 and that’s because they turned the ball over twice as much as UNC did. If they don’t figure out how to play smart with the ball, they will not just lose to Carolina, but they will leave the Dean Dome utterly embarrassed about the beatdown they just had to endure.
Bottom Line, UNC is going to win. Duke needed everything to go right for them and everything to go wrong for Carolina just to come away with the win the last time out and UNC will prove on saturday that they are far and away the best team in the ACC and deserving of a 1 seed.