CHARLOTTE— Matt Doherty came up with a game plan that gave North Carolina fans a glimpse of the Tar Heels’ glorious ACC Tournament past rather than their present plight.
Doherty’s scheme worked well enough that UNC didn’t have to abandon it until the final minute of Friday’s ACC quarterfinal against Duke.
And the Blue Devils forced such a move by borrowing a bit from Doherty himself.
The seventh-seeded Tar Heels played 39 minutes of stall ball on Friday night and hung tough with second-seeded Duke, but some clutch shots with the shot clock winding down propelled the Blue Devils to a 60-48 win at the Charlotte Coliseum.
Duke advanced to today’s semifinal against Wake Forest with the win, but the Tar Heels pulled out all the stops in trying to prevent picking up their 20th loss of the season.
“It was one of the finer games played,”Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Both teams played so well, hard and clean. It was a classic game.”
The Tar Heels(8-20) used a delay offense and didn’t begin attacking the basket until 15 seconds or less remained on the shot clock.
UNC, which went up for only two shots with more than 20 seconds left on the shot clock for the first 39 minutes, trailed only 48-43 with less than four minutes left.
Duke’s Jason Williams, who scored a game-high 20 points, came up with a steal and fast-break dunk, then hit a back-breaking 3-pointer with one second left on the shot clock to give the Blue Devils (27-3) a 10-point edge.
On Duke’s next possession, Chris Duhon drained a 3 from the top of the key with only three seconds left on the shot clock to seal the game.
“In the end, we kept our composure and looked for our leaders to respond,”Krzyzewski said.“They hit every shot.”
When UNC guard Adam Boone scored with 1:12 left to cut Duke’s lead to 58-45, it marked the sixth make in only seven field-goal tries for the Tar Heels in the second half.
The Tar Heels’ only miss up to that point had come on a Jason Capel 3-point try 53 seconds into the second half, meaning UNC went more than 18 minutes without missing a shot from the field.
“We don’t want to have to play this way, but it gave us the best chance to win,” Doherty said. “In previous games we’ve shown that we struggle against their tempo and pressure.”
Doherty said he came up with the idea a few days before UNC’s regular-season finale at Duke, but he didn’t have time to implement it then.
“I give immense credit to them for their preparation for the game,”Krzyzewski said.“It was a well-conceived, well-drilled game plan.”
The Tar Heels shot 8 of 12 in the second half and finished the game at 51.7 percent, compared to 39.1 percent by the Blue Devils.
But the major pitfall of UNC’s slow-as-you-can-go offense proved to be turnovers. The Tar Heels committed 17 in the game, including the dagger that led to Williams’ breakaway slam.
Duke, on the other hand, didn’t commit a single turnover in the second half and finished with only three for the game. They also had 24 points off turnovers, compared to two for UNC.
Boone, who scored five points and had two turnovers in 34 minutes, saw the good and bad of the Tar Heels’ ploy, which put pressure on UNC’s guards to handle the ball with precision near midcourt.
“It was sometimes tough because it put us on an island searching for everyone,”Boone said.“It was fun to see the frustration in them.”
The Blue Devils kept their composure for the most part, even when Doherty couldn’t on the UNC sideline.
The Tar Heels jumped out to an early 11-10 lead when a television timeout was called with 11:32 left. An excited Doherty soon raced away from the UNC bench to greet Boone and Melvin Scott near midcourt.
With the score tied at 12-12 a few minutes later, Boone stood at halfcourt with the ball tucked under his right arm. Duke guard Chris Duhon, with plenty of time on his hands, slapped the floor eight quick times.
The Blue Devils led 26-14 with less than four minutes left in the first half and could have forced Doherty to drop the ball-control scheme. But Duke took a couple of bad shots and let the Tar Heels close to within 28-22 at the half.
“We had a chance to change the way the game was played for the rest of the game, but it was the only time in the game we didn’t take good shots,”Krzyzewski said.
UNC cut the deficit to as few as three points in the second half, but Duke patiently built the lead back up.
The Blue Devils prefer to run up and down the court at a frenetic pace, but Friday’s game could help them in a few weeks.
“That was an NCAA Tournament-type of game,”Williams said.“It was slowed down, fight possession after possession. In the tournament, it’s not that high scoring. Teams take care of the ball.”
Williams and his teammates showed Friday night that the Blue Devils can take care of the ball better than most teams.
Even if their opponent clearly owned the time of possession category.
Said UNC’s Jawad Williams, “It was funny to look at them and see how mad they were. They called us everything.”
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Contact Bret Strelow at 704-797-4258 or bstrelow@salisburypost.com
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