There were people wondering this week if North Carolina–Duke had lost some of its juice. With all the changes in college sports — NIL, the transfer portal, constant roster churn — it was fair to ask whether the sport’s best rivalry still hit like it used to.
Anyone still asking that question probably stopped after Saturday night.
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The 14th-ranked Tar Heels stunned No. 4 Duke 71-68 in a thriller at the Dean E. Smith Center, a game that had just about everything. North Carolina senior guard Seth Trimble drilled a corner 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left for the game-winner, capping a furious comeback and setting off bedlam. The Tar Heels trailed for 37:39 and didn’t take their first lead until Trimble’s shot.
The three-point margin was Carolina’s closest win over Duke since a 75-73 victory on March 5, 2005, when Sean May had 26 points and 24 rebounds and Marvin Williams converted a three-point play with 17 seconds remaining.
UNC trailed for most of the night and didn’t pull even until Henri Veesaar knocked down a game-tying 3 with 1:40 to play. After defensive stops on both ends, Carolina got the ball back with 10.6 seconds left. Freshman point guard Derek Dixon took the inbounds pass, drove the lane as several Duke defenders collapsed on him and kicked it to a wide-open Trimble in the corner. One smooth release later, the shot dropped — and pandemonium followed.
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It was a fitting ending for a player who has spent his entire career in Chapel Hill, a rarity in the era of one-and-done and the transfer portal, when many four-year college players have been on two or three teams.
Not only was it a feel-good moment for Trimble, it was a historic one.
UNC trailed by 12 at halftime, 41-29, and by as many as 13 in the first half. It was the Tar Heels’ largest comeback from a halftime deficit this season and their biggest halftime rally since overcoming an 18-point deficit in a win over Dayton last year.
Trimble’s game-winner was the first field goal to beat Duke with fewer than 10 seconds to play since Dante Calabria’s tip-in with 6.5 seconds left on Jan. 31, 1996, in a 73-72 UNC win at the Smith Center.
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“It happened to the perfect person. He should be celebrated,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “What he’s meant to me, what he’s meant to this team and this program, the commitment that he has for this place. He’s another person that wanted to be a part of the ‘we’ and the ‘the.’ And he’ll be remembered for the rest of his life in Carolina history. I couldn’t think of a better person to have that with.”
It was the perfect ending, indeed. And it served as a loud reminder of something that should no longer be in doubt: Carolina–Duke still has plenty of juice.
For starters, the rivalry has always been tightly contested. Since the 2020-21 season, UNC has a slim 7-6 advantage over Duke.
The programs have played at least twice a year since 1920 and have dominated the ACC, combining for 49 regular-season and 38 tournament titles. North Carolina has six NCAA titles; Duke has five, with 37 Final Four appearances between them.
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Since North Carolina’s first national championship in 1957, Duke and Carolina have captured 28% of the national championships — more than one every four years. Over the past 18 years, one of the two teams has been the AP preseason No. 1 eight times.
Nonetheless, moments like Trimble’s buzzer beater — and, in coming years, matchups featuring individual stars such as Carolina’s Caleb Wilson and Duke’s Cameron Boozer — will always have both diehard and casual college basketball fans tuned in. The names on the jerseys may change more quickly now, but the stakes, the history and the drama haven’t gone anywhere.
No other rivalry in college basketball compares, and Saturday night was simply another epic chapter in the best rivalry in college sports.
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: UNC Basketball: Tar Heels, Blue Devils deliver another classic
