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Duke Basketball: Blue Devils looking for revenge against North Carolina

By Kevin Connelly

DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 05: Alex O'Connell #15, Tre Jones #3 and RJ Barrett #5 of the Duke Blue Devils celebrate during the final seconds of their win against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Cameron Indoor Stadium on March 05, 2019 in Durham, North Carolina. Duke won 71-70. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 05: Alex O'Connell #15, Tre Jones #3 and RJ Barrett #5 of the Duke Blue Devils celebrate during the final seconds of their win against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Cameron Indoor Stadium on March 05, 2019 in Durham, North Carolina. Duke won 71-70. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /
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The Duke Basketball team has its last true road game of the season on Saturday night and the Blue Devils are looking for revenge on its bitter rival, the North Carolina Tar Heels.

There’s no other words for it, but it was an utter romp on February 20 in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

A major part of that had to do with Zion Williamson getting injured in the first 30 seconds of that game, but even after he went down, the Blue Devils looked shell shocked and disinterested as the North Carolina Tar Heels rolled to a victory.

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The biggest issue for Duke on the court when Williamson went down was trying to contain Luke Maye. The senior went for 30 points and 15 rebounds and had an answer for everything the Blue Devils tried to throw at him.

Emotions will be high in the Dean Dome on Saturday night as it will be the last time Maye and Cam Johnson will take the floor and you can be sure that all they want is a regular season sweep over the Blue Devils to go out.

The status of Zion Williamson is unknown as I am writing this. On Friday afternoon, Mike Krzyzewski said that he thinks Zion would be ‘doubtful’ but Williamson would go through a non-contact workout on Friday and the team would announce his status on Saturday morning after shoot-around.

It might be safe to assume that Williamson will not play on Saturday night, but he is almost definitely going to play in both the ACC and NCAA Tournaments.

North Carolina struggled shooting the ball from 3-point range in the February 20 matchup making just two of its twenty attempts and if Duke wants to have success on the road, the Blue Devils will have to try and run the Heels off the 3-point line.

If Zion does not play, R.J. Barrett and Cam Reddish are going to have to take a lot of the scoring burden, but they are going to need help.

Barrett and Reddish 60 of Duke’s 72 points in the first matchup.

Tre Jones, Alex O’Connell, Jordan Goldwire, Marques Bolden, Jack White, and Javin DeLaurier were a combined 4-of-27 from the field, with DeLaurier taking and making three of those shots.

If that happens again, the same result will happen again.

With or without Zion Williamson it’s going to take a collective team effort to pull off the upset, yes upset, in Chapel Hill.

Duke is an underdog going into this game for just the third time this season (vs. Kentucky, at. Virginia) and we know how those games ended.

I haven’t picked against the Blue Devils this season, why would I start on the final game of the regular season?

This will be like the 2016 thriller in the Dean Dome when an already short-handed Duke team without Amile Jefferson went into the Chapel Hill, Matt Jones was injured in the first 10 minutes, and Grayson Allen, Brandon Ingram, and Luke Kennard led Duke to a one-point victory with a defensive stop in the final seconds from Derryck Thornton.

Round Two of the 2018-19 rivalry will tipoff at 6:00pm ET and can be seen on ESPN.

PREDICTION: Duke 78, North Carolina 75

Stay tuned to Ball Durham on Twitter, @Ball_Durham, and here at our website, balldurham.com, for complete coverage of the Duke Blue Devils vs. the North Carolina Tar Heels.  

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