Duke vs. North Carolina: Upset Doesn't Make Blue Devils Better Than Tar Heels

The Duke Blue Devils stole a win at Chapel Hill on Wednesday night, much to the dismay of the thousands of screaming fans packed into the Dean E. Smith Center.

The Tar Heels had the game under wraps until the final minutes of the game. Everything fell apart, and the guys on the floor wearing baby blue seemed to have no clue what was going on. They figured it out as soon as Austin Rivers' three-pointer went through at the buzzer, giving Duke an 85-84 win that nobody saw coming.

Nothing should be taken away from Rivers. The freshman sensation played his best game as a Blue Devil, scoring a game-high 29 points and knocking down six threes. Duke needed him to play like a star, and he obliged.

However, nobody should take this as an opportunity to get too carried away. Duke is not a better basketball team than North Carolina. That was the truth heading into Wednesday's contest, and it's the truth now.

Everyone should keep in mind that the Tar Heels dominated Wednesday night's game for the most part. They had some catching up to do in the first half thanks to all of the threes the Blue Devils were hitting, but they were able to run away with the game once they finally caught up. After going into the half with a three-point lead, North Carolina opened the second half with a 14-4 run. They nursed a double-digit lead for the rest of the half—right up until the very end, of course.

Not surprisingly, it was North Carolina's frontcourt that was doing the bulk of the damage. Duke had no answer for Tyler Zeller in the first half, and Harrison Barnes took over in the second half. Zeller ended up with 23 points, Barnes scored 25 and John Henson pitched in 12 points and 17 boards.

As for why North Carolina collapsed at the end of the game, it's really not hard to determine what went wrong. The collapse was a choke job, but a lot of bad luck went into it as well.

Most notably, how about the non-travel call on Seth Curry's three with 1:48 left on the clock. He took, what, four steps? Five? Had the refs called it, the ball's going the other way and the Tar Heels have an 82-75 lead.

Not long after that, Ryan Kelly launched up a brick that was tipped in by Zeller. Only he knows why he went up for it in the first place, but he appeared to get pushed in the back on the play. That could have been called too.

Zeller then missed two key free throws, allowing Duke to set up for the final shot with a chance to win with a three. Rivers buried it while being guarded with Zeller, who gave Rivers way too much space.

In the end, it was a case of everything going Duke's way and nothing going North Carolina's way.

If all things are equal, Duke doesn't come close to winning Wednesday night's game. It wasn't just the breaks, either. The Blue Devils made 14 threes, nearly twice as many as they typically make in a game. In total, they took 36 of them, which goes to show how afraid Duke was to mix it up inside against North Carolina.

The next time the Blue Devils and Tar Heels play, North Carolina will live with Duke taking half its shots from beyond the three-point line. Not all of them are going to go in, especially not as far as Rivers is concerned. He was hot on Wednesday night, but he's not a reliable three-point shooter. He gets hot from three, but he also gets cold from three.

All things being equal, there's no denying the Tar Heels have more talent and more depth than Duke. Take bad luck out of the equation, and they'll beat this Duke team every time.