Duke vs. UNC: Austin Rivers Sinks Epic Game-Winning 3

Sometimes games actually live up to all of the massive hype.

When Austin Rivers drilled the game-winning three-pointer as time expired to give No. 9 Duke an 85-84 win on the road against No. 5 North Carolina at the buzzer, every college basketball fan was satisfied.

North Carolina held a 10-point lead with two minutes remaining before getting sloppy on defense. They weren’t respecting Duke’s three-point shooting and the Blue Devils end up finishing the game on a 13-2 run. Duke drilled 14 three’s to Carolina’s one.

Duke has now beaten Carolina in five of their last six meetings and have re-entered the conversation for a one-seed in the NCAA tournament. The freshman Rivers finished with 29 points and five rebounds while drilling 6-of-10 three-point shots. This is the sort of game scouts will remember in June when he’s prepping for the NBA draft.

Ryan Kelly and Seth Curry both added 15 while Mason Plumlee pulled down 14 rebounds.

Harrison Barnes led the Tar Heels with 25 while John Henson hauled in 17 rebounds.

Looking at the stat sheet you’d assume Carolina won convincingly. They shot at a higher percentage (49 to 43), out rebounded them (41 to 31), made more free throws (21 to 17), committed less turnovers (9 to 10) and had more assists (14 to 8).

The big difference was the three-ball and the poor play of Tyler Zeller down the stretch. He missed two crucial free throws and was the defender that switched onto Rivers before his final shot. Zeller has too concerned with letting Rivers blow by him and allowed way too much space for Rivers to get the shot off.

The rest is history.

Carolina was the better team but blew it down the stretch by playing not to lose instead of putting the stake into the heart of Duke.

I’ll leave you with two stats that put this wacky game into perspective, one with the chances of Duke winning this game at the end from Vegas odds maker Chris Andrews and the other from ESPN’s Rick Reilly that shows you just how close this rivalry is:

Make it Duke by two.