#3 DUKE @ NORTH-CAROLINA-CHAPEL HILL
March 9, 2013
Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Dean E. Smith Center)

Duke finishes up its second-best-in-the-regular season campaign, which isn't bad concerning the loss of Kelly for 13 of the 18 games on the ACC sked, with this annual tussle in Mos Eisley Spaceport.  Last year's was certainly fun to watch, at least at the end, even if it was Austin Rivers' one and only (accepted) submission for his Duke career highlight video.

Neither team's seeding is in jeopardy here, as I understand it: Duke is #2 in the ACC-T (that, I'm sure about) and the Tools are #3 (which I haven't run myself have read in several places that seem to be trustworthy) no matter what.  Which means that we'll probably be meeting them again in a week's time in Greensboro if seeds hold.  

This season, Roy made his One and Only Adjustment of the Season by doping out, about halfway through the proceedings, that if you have terrible and/or inexperienced centers, but your power forward and expected team leader is 6-9 and several of your guards are quite tall, you should probably run four guards and the power forward out there, which will also improve ballhandling.  Duh!  Had I not been taking the season off (relax, by the way, I'm probably all in for the postseason and for next year as well, if you had any concerns), I would have had a mighty dilemma: whether or not to announce that on the Internet back in, say, November!  Yes, I realize that idea of Rrhoid being one of my 8.5 loyal readers is both hopelessly funny and improbable, but YOU NEVER KNOW.  So good thing I solved that problem by just shutting up about everything.  

Duke, without Kelly, really struggled against The Four-Guard Lineup in Durham, but with Kelly, they seem to present more matchup problems than they will confront.  As usual, much depends on whether or not Mason sheds his magic shoes o' cement and actually looks like a developed big man.  By the way, isn't it nice that Ryan Kelly looks like he's all fresh and has an extra gear out there?  Wonder why that is?  

It would be very nice for Duke to bury the specter of its road woes by taking this one.  I'm pretty sure it will be close and will call a narrow Duke win, but this could go either way, as the bluehairs will be scowling, and I understand that the AfAm Department cancelled classes for the week to ensure that no one's attention was distracted by the otherwise rigorous Chapel Hill curriculum.

By the way, that reminds me of schools where athletes and other students attend classes that actually exist.  Congratulations to Mason, Amile, Ryan, and Rahseed on Academic All-ACC honors, and to Mason for back-to-back national Academic All-America selections.  Impressive and a lot to be proud of.              

Duke 77, North Carolina-Chapel Hill 74.