bstrickland@heraldsun.com; 419-6671
CHAPEL HILL — Duke’s shooting struggles away from home nearly sunk to new depths Wednesday night, of all times, on the Blue Devils’ shortest but most significant trip of the season.
The Blue Devils, however, found their touch just in time to keep North Carolina in the depths of despair.
Duke, hitting barely one out of every four shots heading to the final seven minutes all tied up with the Tar Heels, hit six of its final seven shots to take control and finish off a 64-54 victory at the Smith Center.
The No. 8 Blue Devils (20-4, 8-2 ACC) maintained first place in the ACC with their third victory in the past five trips to Chapel Hill, though just their second win overall in the teams’ eight most recent meetings.
The Tar Heels (13-11, 2-7) scored the fewest points in the Roy Williams era to drop closer to the ACC cellar with their fourth consecutive loss.
“I thought both teams played really hard; buckets were hard to come by,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “For us to keep up our defense and rebounding throughout, when the ball wasn’t going in the basket, was a big thing.”
With the ball not going in for Duke inside the 3-point line at an amazing rate — the Blue Devils had missed 31 of 34 two-point attempts at one juncture — and with UNC making matters difficult with 12 blocked shots, the Tar Heels were able to inch ahead 43-39 with about 12 minutes left.
But from that point until the final minute, the Tar Heels misfired on 9 of 11 shots on their way to 34.5-percent shooting, marginally better than Duke’s 31.9-percent effort.
During UNC’s drought, Duke’s offense finally caught up to its defense and rebounding.
With big man Lance Thomas out with what appears to be a significant knee injury, Duke freshman Mason Plumlee started the decisive spurt, grabbing one of Duke’s 23 offensive rebounds and slamming it backwards over his head for a 47-45 lead with 7:01 left.
Duke never trailed again.
“We kept getting blocked inside, so you’ve got to try something new eventually,” said Plumlee, who finished with seven points and nine rebounds. “I shot-faked and used the rim to block off the shot blockers.
“I was just trying to get the shot off without getting it blocked again.”
The power of the play seemed to dislodge whatever had been blocking the Duke’s basket.
Jon Scheyer, who paced all scorers with 24 points, hit a runner through the lane the next time down. After Will Graves, who led UNC with 13 points, answered with a 3-pointer, Scheyer came right back with one of his five 3-point shots.
After baskets by Duke’s Nolan Smith and UNC’s John Henson, Kyle Singler (19 points) received a perfect pass from big man Brian Zoubek cutting through the lane for a layup. Scheyer hit another 3-pointer after Marcus Ginyard had barely missed one for UNC.
Just like that, Duke led 59-50 with less than three minutes to go.
“We had the mentality that we were just going to keep attacking and not let anything faze us,” said Smith, who scored all 10 of his points in the second half. “It started with our defense. We were able to get some easy things off defense and offensive rebounding, and the guys just kept fighting.”
The Blue Devils hit 9 of 18 shots from 3-point range, with Scheyer going 5-of-9 and Singler 4-of-5, though much of the long-distance damage came in the first half.
Duke shot just 22.5 percent in the first half, including a remarkable 3-of-28 inside the line (10.7 percent), but the Devils drilled 6-of-12 from 3-point range to lead 28-27 at the break.
Duke claimed a 28-24 lead late in the half on a 3-pointer by Singler and a follow shot by Plumlee, who made two of Duke’s three two-pointers in the half.
UNC sophomore Larry Drew II broke free from a mad scramble and converted a three-point play with 2.8 seconds left to tighten things up again and give the Tar Heels some momentum they maintained — for a while.
“For about 30 minutes, I thought it was a really good basketball game,” Williams said. “Their work on the offensive boards was a killer, and I think our inability to put the ball in the basket does hurt.
“No moral victories. We’ve got to play better.”
NOTES — Thomas went out with 17:20 left in the games when he appeared to bump knees with Drew in the lane. Two teammates carried Thomas to the locker room, and he never returned to the bench. “It’s not a minor injury. It’s a serious injury,” Krzyzewski said. “I don’t think it’s an ACL, but it’s his knee. We’ll know more in the next 24 hours.” … The victory was the 100th for Duke’s senior class that includes Thomas, to go with just 28 losses.
