University of North Carolina Athletics
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Duke
North Carolina Falls At No. 9 Duke, 83-74
February 5, 2003 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 5, 2003
By DAVID DROSCHAK
AP Sports Writer
DURHAM, N.C. - The spice is back in the Duke-North Carolina rivalry.
The No. 9 Blue Devils, struggling on offense for the past few weeks, put it together when it counted most against their archrival, scoring on their final 11 possessions for an 83-74 victory over the Tar Heels on Wednesday night.
"This is the way the game should be played," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "It was so hard and so clean. I admire their team. It was a great night for ACC basketball.
"It was an honor to be in this game," the Hall of Fame coach added. "This is one of the better ones I've been in the last couple of years."
Dahntay Jones scored 23 points and had 13 rebounds in front of a cheering section that included Grant Hill and Jason Williams, who had his No. 22 retired at halftime.
Jones had his super game just days after going 1-for-10 for two points in a weekend loss at Florida State.
"Dahntay played like he has played just about the whole year," Krzyzewski said. "The Florida State game was like: `Who was that guy?' He was strong tonight and he hit shots. He was a veteran."
Duke (15-3, 5-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) beat the Tar Heels (11-10, 2-6) for the sixth straight time, but this wasn't like the three blowout victories of a season ago.
North Carolina, which lost its fifth straight, got 25 points from Raymond Felton, and 19 each from Jawad Williams and David Noel in taking Duke down to the wire in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
"Our guys were really together and mentally ready," said UNC coach Matt Doherty, whose team was 10-for-21 from 3-point range but missed 9-of-19 free throws.
"You emotionally invest and there is no guarantee. But if you don't emotionally invest there is a guarantee, and that's you're going to lose. We invested again and we had a chance to win."
The score was tied at 61 before Jones started Duke's final surge with two foul shots with 5:36 left, a 3-pointer and an alley-oop dunk off a pass from Chris Duhon to put the Blue Devils up for good, 68-63.
"As soon as it went 61-61 my eyes lit up because I knew it was winning time and that's what I told my teammates," said Jones, who also had three steals. "This is what the game is made of. I tried to go out there and make plays."
Duhon followed with a 3-pointer and Duke was on its way to its 24th straight home win.
"Guys were into the game and they were being unselfish," Duhon said of Duke's final run. "We have to do that, we have to complement our defense. That's something we haven't been doing. We would be getting stops, but then we would take bad shots on the other end and it's been hurting our defense."
Krzyzewski shook up his lineup for the 10th time this season, on this occasion benching the slumping Duhon, the team's captain and point guard who has just 33 points in his last six games.
Duhon's streak of 50 straight starts was snapped and he managed no points in 17 first-half minutes. But he responded with 12 points in the second half and finished with 10 assists, receiving a big hug from his coach when he left the game in the final seconds.
The only downer for Duke was that J.J. Redick missed a free throw, stopping his streak at 43, five shy of the ACC record held by Jeff Lamp of Virginia.
Redick pointed to his head in the locker room when asked how he missed the free throw.
"I wasn't focused," he said.
North Carolina's Rashad McCants, the third-leading scorer in the ACC at 18.8 a game, was limited by back problems and held to two points.
It took less than five minutes for the rivalry to heat up yet again. Jones backed into Doherty after making a 3-pointer.
Doherty protested, and met Krzyzewski 10 feet from his bench as the two coaches exchanged words before officials stepped in.
"It was nothing that I did on purpose," Jones said of his bumping incident with Doherty. "I didn't see who it was on my back. I thought it was a player. But I apologized. He knew I didn't mean to hit him."
Six minutes later, the Tar Heels started a 9-0 run that helped them take a 43-38 lead at the break. Duke went 0-for-9 from the field at one point as North Carolina built its lead to as many as nine, shooting 61.5 percent and making 6-of-9 3-pointers in the opening 20 minutes.
This 213th meeting between the two schools separated by nine miles even had a streaker with 24 seconds left in the half. The nude male, fully painted in blue, went baseline to baseline before being arrested by police.
The win gives Duke 1.5 points in the annual Carlyle Cup all-sports competition beteween the schools. Twenty-four points are needed to win the cup each year.
