Winner Take All

A look at the UNC-Duke regular season title game history.

By Adam Lucas
http://www.tarheelblue.com/
March 2, 2012

Carolina and Duke will stage a winner-take-all battle for the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season title on Saturday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Overall, it will be the seventh such game in the history of the series, and the third in the last five years. ACC programs not named Carolina or Duke have played zero winner-take-all regular season showdowns.

A quick look at the previous six games:

1958: #6 Duke 59, #9 Carolina 46 (Durham): The two teams engaged in a brief scuffle during the game, and when the Blue Devils clinched the victory, Duke students stormed the court and cut down the nets--a tactic Tar Heel coach Frank McGuire had himself used to tweak NC State coach Everett Case earlier in his career. McGuire responded to the scene by keeping his players on the bench and waiting for a police escort to escort his team to the locker room. That move was not appreciated in Durham and led to a war of words in the newspapers over the following weeks.

1967: #4 Carolina 92, UR Duke 79 (Chapel Hill): Coming off a disappointing 70-57 loss at South Carolina, the Tar Heels rebounded to play a solid second half against Duke and claim the league championship. Larry Miller scored 22 of his 29 points in the second half to propel Carolina to Dean Smith's first league regular season title.

1978: #8 Carolina 87, #13 Duke 83 (Chapel Hill): In one of the greatest senior days in Carolina basketball history, Phil Ford scored 34 points while playing all 40 minutes in front of an adoring Carmichael Auditorium crowd. Every bit of Ford's spectacular performance was needed, as the Blue Devils--a team that would advance to the national championship game--shot 57 percent from the field.

1991: #8 Duke 83, #4 Carolina 77 (Chapel Hill): On the way to Mike Krzyzewski's first national title, Duke blew out to a 67-48 second-half lead and held on down the stretch to clinch the regular season championship. Carolina eventually closed the deficit to 80-78 with 1:08 remaining, but Greg Koubek and Thomas Hill combined to hit key free throws in the final 60 seconds, and Carolina missed a series of three-pointers in the final minute.

2008: #1 Carolina 76, #6 Duke 68 (Durham): After Carolina sprinted to a 43-31 halftime lead behind 14 first-half points from Danny Green--including the now-legendary dunk over Greg Paulus--Duke led 68-66 with 5:30 remaining. But Tyler Hansbrough's lay-up gave the Tar Heels a late lead, and Ty Lawson nailed a pair of free throws and then made a key steal that led to a Green tip-in. Duke did not score over the final 5:41.

2011: #13 Carolina 81, #4 Duke 67 (Chapel Hill): In a game played exactly 364 days ago, the Tar Heels received an early boost from a senior day starting five of Kendall Marshall, Justin Knox, D.J. Johnston, Daniel Bolick and Van Hatchell. The group left the game holding a 3-0 advantage and sparked the Smith Center crowd with several hustle plays. From there, Carolina zipped to a 51-39 halftime lead, and Duke never got closer than five points in the second half. The 14-2 ACC finish capped a Tar Heel comeback from a 5-11 record the previous season and completed an undefeated home season.

Quick Facts

•Of the six season-ending meetings, three have been reprised in the following week's ACC Tournament championship games.

•Of the six previous years when Carolina and Duke met in a winner-take-all regular season finale, the victor has claimed the ACC Tournament title just twice (1967 and 2008).

•The team that has won the winner-take-all regular season finale has advanced to the Final Four three times; the loser has advanced to the Final Four twice.

•The team with the halftime lead has won five of the previous six winner-take-all matchups (the exception was 1978).

•Saturday will mark the sixth straight regular season finale in which at least one of Carolina or Duke is playing for a share of the ACC regular season title.


Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter and Facebook.

Photo: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images