Roy Williams walked into the North Carolina locker room and apologized to his players, some of whom had been bent over and sobbing moments before after the Tar Heels’ stunning 74-73 defeat against Duke on Wednesday night. It was an improbable defeat given the circumstances – given UNC’s advantage in depth and given that Duke for most of the night at the Smith Center played on without Matt Jones, one of its starters, and played in the second half through perilous foul trouble.
And yet the defeat wasn’t all that improbable, either, because it had happened before, in a way. The Tar Heels had lost like this, after failing to hold second-half leads. They had lost amid late failures in tense moments, lost when they couldn’t make a key shot or come up with a key defensive stop.
And wasn’t that how it happened, again, on Wednesday night at the Smith Center. The Tar Heels led by eight, 68-60, with a little less than seven minutes remaining. Then the lead kept dwindling – down to six points, and four, down to two and then one. And then there was no UNC lead at all after Luke Kennard, the Duke freshman whose role expanded amid Jones’ injury, made a 3-pointer with less than three minutes remaining. That put the Blue Devils ahead 72-71 and cast an ominous silence over the crowd.
It had been so raucous, so energized just minutes earlier when it appeared that UNC was one shot away, or one defensive stop away, from seizing control and putting the scrappy Blue Devils out of their misery. What happened then, during those final seven minutes. UNC players, after collecting themselves, after hearing their coach apologize to them, met with reporters and tried to put it into words. Brice Johnson, the Tar Heels’ senior forward who finished with 29 points and 19 rebounds, pursed his lips and shook his head while he spoke
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