Duke basketball alum gets up-close look at North Carolina blowout

A Duke basketball alum got an up-close look at the blowout loss of North Carolina. 

While the Duke basketball team might not be in the NCAA Tournament this season, Blue Devil fans certainly had smiles on their faces on Friday night.

In the late window during the Round of 64, the No. 9 seed Wisconsin Badgers took on the No. 8 seed North Carolina Tar Heels with a date with the No. 1 seed Baylor Bears on the line.

Wisconsin guard Brad Davison turned into Steph Curry with 29 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the floor and 5-of-7 from three-point range in a 85-62 victory for the Badgers over the Tar Heels, ending UNC’s season.

However, former Duke star Grant Hill was on-site to watch the fall of his former college rival as a member of the broadcast crew in West Lafayette, Indiana alongside play-by-play commentator Ian Eagle.

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While in Durham, Hill was a two-time NCAA Champion and two-time All-American from 1990-1994.

The Dallas, Texas native was 5-5 in his 10 career games against the Tar Heels but ended his college career on a three-game losing streak to North Carolina.

Duke basketball standout gets shifted in NCAA Tournament coverage

Typically on CBS during the regular season or NCAA Tournament, Grant Hill is on the top broadcast team on the network alongside Jim Nantz, Bill Raftery, and Tracy Wolfson, as seen in this season’s Big Ten Tournament.

As the chaos surrounded COVID-19 protocols with the 68 teams arriving in Indianapolis, the broadcast crew saw a COVID casualty as former Blue Devil Jim Spanarkel was ruled out for the first two rounds due to protocols surrounding the virus.

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CBS then slid Hill with Eagle, as a replacement for Spanarkel, as Nantz and Raftery became their own broadcast team for the first day of the tournament.

Grant Hill and Ian Eagle will not be broadcasting a Round of 32 game on Sunday afternoon or evening but could get back behind the microphone on Monday, March 22.