North Carolina adds icing to an outright ACC title

He was held scoreless over the first 11 minutes of the second half. North Carolina is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall and 20-7 ATS in their last 27 home games while the under is 5-0 in their last 5 home games. And the Tar Heels entered the Smith Center thinking about their first game against Duke – UNC’s 86-78 loss in Durham on February 9. Rebecca Greenwell added eight. A Duke win and a Florida State victory would result in Duke being the four seed, while a loss for the Blue Devils could drop them to the seven seed as it could make them one of six teams finishing the regular season with exactly seven conference losses. Justin Jackson and Joel Berry have been phenomenal all season.

Balkam allowed two goals and made two saves in the opening period as UNC took a 4-2 lead.

That much was obvious from the tip, when Berry came out with his hair on fire, hitting three 3-pointers in the first 10 minutes and extending his physical defense out to halfcourt. Justin Jackson hit a tiebreaking 3-pointer with less than six minutes to play and assisted on Isaiah Hicks’ three-point play on the next possession for a 77-71 lead. Allen missed a pair of free throws at the 2:04 mark.

Frank Jackson, who is averaging 10.6 points per game, led Duke in scoring in the last outing with a game-high 22 points. With some additional help from her teammates, Duke took a 51-46 lead with 4:32 left on the clock.

The half was played at a high level as the lead changed hands 18 times with five ties.

The Heels shot just 35.4 percent from the field and scored only 43 points in what many are chalking up as just “one of those nights”.

“His first shot went in, he got a little more enthused and the second one went in, he got a little more, and the third one went in, he got a little more enthused”, UNC coach Roy Williams said.

Senior guard Alexis Peterson became the program’s all-time leader in assists.

Despite that and Berry’s first-half heroics, Duke managed to keep things close, and Kennard was the biggest factor.

Whatever the word “clutch” means, this game was it for the Tar Heels, in the biggest game of the season. His first-half technical foul-the product of raising his elbow into the face of North Carolina’s Brandon Robinson on a drive, just as Allen flopped his head back to draw a foul-was in an odd way confirmation that he was as combative as ever.

The officials used video replay to review the play.

These two teams last met on February 10 in Durham, when Allen channeled his inner 2015-16 self and freshman Jayson Tatum dominated inside throughout the second half.

“It’s good to get the win, good to be out here, it’s good to just be on top of Duke”, he said.