Durham, NC – The North Carolina was taken in the dismantling of Duke’s Buzzsaw on Saturday evening, and was cut into pieces.
The Blue Devils n ° 2 overwhelmed the Tar Heels 87-70 in ACC Basketball at Cameron Indoor Stadium, offering a dominant eruption in this unbalanced rivals match that apparently directed in opposite directions.
Kon Knueppel scored 22 points and the first-year phenomenon, Cooper Flagg provided 21 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, while Duke, the League (19-2 in total, 11-0 ACC) exploited the weaknesses From the UNC while performing the longest sequence of Victories of College Basketball to 15 simple victories.
The Tar Heels, sinking through a certain number of unhappy stretching, looked like a team without a plan to fight against the exceptional size of Duke and the elite appetite for the defense. The UNC (13-10, 6-5) suffered its fourth defeat in the last five games.
The Blue Devils led 77-45 with less than nine minutes of playing time, and seemed ready to accumulate one of the biggest margins of victory in the pages of this legendary rivalry. Carolina used a sequence at the end of 18-2 to cut Duke’s huge advance at 79-63.
Drake Powell scored his 12 points in the second half. RJ Davis finished with 12 points. Davis, the fifth year senior goalkeeper, had been 3-1 in the games on the road here at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Duke. Seth Trimble added 10 points.

Duke offers a punch in the first half
Duke led 47-25 at halftime, when the first half ended with an indicative mode of the way on Saturday evening had been for the Tar Heels. Flagg had picked up dribble and was stuck against RJ Davis with the expiration of the clock. Thus, the recruit of Duke of 6 feet 9 inch simply turned and delighted a rider of reversal on the first year senior of the 6 -foot UNC.
Flagg provided 13 points, five assists, four rebounds, two blocked shots and two interceptions during the first half only, his immense skills entirely exposed sometimes. He scored or helped on the first 18 points of the Duke match, while the Blue Devils accumulated a big lead that kept growing. Later, with the Tar Heels plugged into a 5½ minute drought, Duke extended and went forward 40-13.
Duke came out of the door and led 23-6 in the first seven minutes of the match, on the strength of a 16-0 start which actually hit the TAR heels while stumbling in the submission. The Blue Devils were on fire, striking nine from their first 13 shots on the ground, including a combination of four 3 points in Flagg, Knuppel and Proctor. Duke’s advance crossed the 20-point threshold in the first half, while the 7-2 Khaman Maluach went up and more than 6-6 Drake Powell for an offensive rebound and a decline. The Blue Devils lead 34-13 at this stage and feasted on the weaknesses of the UNC.
Meanwhile, RJ Davis and Ian Jackson went aimless in the first 15 minutes of the match. The Tar Heels drew just 29.6% of the field during the first half and entered the break with more reversals (nine) than successful goals (eight). Elliot Gift had five reversals in the first half. He touched three reversals when opening the 4½ minutes of the match.
Next on the calendar
The UNC reaches Bye in the middle of the week that the CAC CALENDER offers, and will have a six -day break between the games before returning to the action next Saturday at home against a familiar enemy in Pittsburgh ( 4 p.m., ESPN2). Carolina will play Pitt twice on a three -game section. The panthers are among the three teams that the Tar Heels compete against the style at home during the conference this season, with Rivals Duke and Nc indicates the others. Carolina and Pitt have just met earlier this week, an assignment on the road that Tar Heels lost 73-65 after leading in the last three minutes of the match.
Pitt lost Saturday in Wake Forest, falling at 14-7 in total and 5-5 in ACC. Panthers have a brief turnaround until their next match, which arrives on Monday evening against Virginia. UNC directs the series of all time 17-9 against Pitt, including 7-3 in home matches and 6-3 at the Smith Center. But the Pitt teams of coach Jeff Capel won six of the last nine meetings with the Tar Heels, including three in a row in Chapel Hill – road victories that were obtained in January 2020, February 2022 and February 2023.