Preview: North Carolina at Duke

DURHAM – There isn’t a banner hanging across Science Drive Garage or Cameron Indoor Stadium this time; the stakes are high, but not quite as high as a berth in the national championship.

Duke and North Carolina finally meet for the first time since last season’s epic matchups. UNC holds the obvious bragging rights, having won at Duke in Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game, and then again in the Final Four.

The Blue Devils moved on from those games; now comes the chance to prove it.

“Obviously what happened last year happened last year, but we don’t want to focus on that too much,” junior Jeremy Roach said. “Kind of want to focus on ourselves and what we have to do to win.”

We’ll dive into that later. First, let’s set the stage for this next matchup, which comes 307 days after the last one.

And setting the stage can’t happen without revisiting — as painful as it may be — the last meetings.

It’s not a new phenomenon in this rivalry for Duke to be bringing in the younger, less-experienced team; it’s just a stark contrast.

Roach is the only Blue Devil who played in either of the last two meetings.

If Jon Scheyer wanted to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with his team about moving forward from those games, it would essentially be a one-on-one conversation.

“You’re talking about last year and looking around, who was with us last year?” Scheyer said. “It’d be like me and Jeremy just having a conversation, just the two of us.”

Take, for example, the case of Kyle Filipowski.

Duke's sensational freshman forward was watching last year's Final Four from his boarding school in Massachusetts.

"I remember sitting in the lobby with a bunch of other friends and kids my age, and how I was one of the only ones rooting for Duke because all of the other ones wanted to see Duke lose," Filipowski said. "That's what's so great about being here now."

While Duke doesn’t dwell on last season’s results, they can’t simply be ignored.

As Roach said, they happened. And moving past the bottom line of the final scores, there are lessons Roach can spread around to this roster of 11 newcomers, seven of them freshmen.

“Everyone wants to know … how it was last year for Coach K’s last game at home or in the Final Four,” Roach said. “What the atmosphere was like. … Obviously you could see the game, it was a war. This year, just giving them some pointers and stuff.

“Like, it’s not going to be the team you see on TV. They’re going to be at a whole ‘nother level, you’ve gotta be ready for that.”

Roach learned those lessons in his first season at Duke. He’s as close as it gets to the Blue Devils having a veteran presence for this game, while the Tar Heels have a core that’s experienced this game more than a couple of times.

“Four of their starters are back, so you have experience playing against them last year,” Scheyer said. “The year before, and the year before that. So there’s familiarity with them.

“But for our team, it’s new and there’s new energy and new mindset and, let’s go.”

No additional comment or big banners needed.

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Here’s what to know ahead of Saturday night’s game:

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Location: Cameron Indoor Stadium.

TV: ESPN.

Announcers: Dan Shulman (play-by-play), Jay Bilas (analyst), Holly Rowe (sidelines).

Series; last meeting: UNC leads 143-115; UNC won 81-77 in last year’s Final Four.

Records: UNC 15-7, 7-4 ACC; Duke 16-6, 7-4.

Stat to watch: 41.2% | 24.1%.

Let’s talk free-throw discrepancy and get it out of the way now.

The first number is UNC’s free-throw attempt/field goal attempt ratio, which is the 13th highest in the country (per KenPom entering Friday’s games); the second number is the FTA/FGA ratio against Duke, the 25th lowest in the country.

In simpler terms: UNC gets to the free-throw line often and Duke doesn’t often allow opponents to get there.

This is the something’s-gotta-give aspect of this matchup.

UNC has taken 84 free throws in its last three games, anchored by a 36-of-39 performance against N.C. State a couple of weeks ago. By comparison, Duke’s opponents have attempted 42 free throws in the Blue Devils’ last three games.

As you’d figure, center Armando Bacot is the best Tar Heel when it comes to drawing fouls. His 6.8 fouls drawn per 40 minutes is 20th in the country and No. 1 in the ACC. His contemporaries in also drawing that many fouls per 40 minutes include Purdue’s Zach Edey and Gonzaga’s Drew Timme.

Bacot is hardly the only one, though. Guards RJ Davis (4.0 per 40) and Caleb Love (3.8) also draw a significant number of fouls.

The key for Duke is defending without fouling, something the Blue Devils have done fairly consistently this season.

Duke has only had three opponents attempt more than 20 free throws in a game this season, and two of those (Ohio State and Florida State) were in wins.

The biggest individual improvement lately has been that of Dereck Lively II. The freshman center commits 6.4 fouls per 40 minutes, but in the five games since fouling out against Pittsburgh (12 minutes), he’s committed 13 fouls in 92 minutes.

Lively remaining on the court against a pick-and-roll heavy UNC team, allowing the Blue Devils to switch 1-through-5, is one of the pillars of a winning formula.

Matchup to watch: One of UNC’s guards vs. Duke’s Mark Mitchell.

The matchup dissection when it comes to this game is always fascinating, and the intriguing part this year is what Duke decides to do with Mitchell.

His natural matchup would be Leaky Black, UNC’s fifth-year wing and defensive stopper in his own right. But he’s not as much of an offensive threat as the Tar Heels’ other four starters; he’s scored in double figures once in UNC’s last 15 games.

So would Duke move Tyrese Proctor or Roach onto Black, freeing up Mitchell and his 6-8, 220-pound frame to harass Davis (6-foot, 175) or Love (6-4, 200)?

The bet here is yes.

Consider some of Mitchell’s primary defensive assignments in the past month:

- Clemson’s Hunter Tyson: Averages 16.3 ppg, shooting 48.6%. Against Duke: Seven points on 2-for-6 shooting, three turnovers.

- Miami’s Isaiah Wong: Averages 16.3 ppg, shooting 44.5%. Against Duke: Seven points on 2-for-8, two turnovers.

- GT’s Miles Kelly: Averages 13.1 ppg, shooting 38.6%. Against Duke: Five points on 2-for-9, one turnover.

- Wake’s Damari Monsanto: Averages 12.6 ppg, shooting 41.8%. Against Duke: 14 points on 4-for-16, one turnover.

Tar Heel to watch: Guard Caleb Love (No. 2).

The likely matchup for Mitchell is an enigma who’s taken the most shots of any Tar Heel and is the only UNC regular whose O-rating (KenPom’s overall offensive measurement) is under 100.

He’s a junior guard who’s capable of both shooting UNC into wins and shooting UNC out of them. In the last two seasons against Duke, it’s been more of the former.

Love is 4-1 against Duke and the one time the Blue Devils won, they held him to eight points (last year at UNC). He was 3-for-10 with four turnovers in that game.

In the four wins against Duke, Love has averaged 23.3 points on 30-for-65 shooting. In the one game that he shot poorly from the field (4-for-17 last season at Cameron), he was 12 of 12 at the free-throw line, equaling career highs in makes and attempts.

You won’t need a reminder of how the end of the Final Four matchup played out.

It’s a shot in the dark about whether it’s to Duke’s benefit or detriment that Love is coming off a 22-point game in Wednesday night’s loss to Pitt. That’s the most he’s scored since equaling that number against Ohio State on Dec. 17; those are his only 20-point performances in UNC’s last 15 games.

Love has shown a proclivity for having bounce-back games against Duke. In the Elite 8 against Saint Peter’s he had 14 points on 6-for-17 shooting; in his freshman season, he had game-to-game scoring bumps of 16 and eight points from the prior game to the Duke matchup.

Blue Devil to watch: Forward Kyle Filipowski (No. 30).

During a game in which he committed a season-high six turnovers and missed his first three 3s, Filipowski was still there at the end with a dagger 3-pointer that gave Duke a seven-point lead in the final minute, plus the run-out dunk that punctuated Duke’s win over Wake Forest on Tuesday night.

In case there was any doubt left about who’s Duke’s most-important player.

Filipowski has gone from something of an afterthought of the No. 1 recruiting class, based on summer word of mouth, to an obvious choice for ACC rookie of the year.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the 7-foot, 230-pounder who’s had a double-double in 11 of Duke’s 22 games.

The latest story in this development comes from a summer workout in which Filipowski left.

“I wasn’t putting in my full amount of effort, and (Scheyer) got on me about it,” Filipowski said of a summer drill. “He didn’t tell me to get out, I actually left myself because I just needed to blow off some steam.”

The driving force that is Filipowski and the relentlessness that he’s brought over the last month is attributable to moments like that, with coaches and teammates pushing him.

“From the summer to where I’m at now and the strides I’ve made, that’s all because of my coaches and my teammates,” Filipowski said. “Just with the confidence they’ve had in me and always believing in me, just all of us starting to become a family, that’s who I give the credit to.

“And I’m going to repay the favor by always diving on the ball and always putting in my effort.”

The next step for Filipowski is to play his best in the game that matters most (to this point).

KenPom prediction: Duke wins 73-70.

Devils Illustrated prognosis: As much focus as there is on this game — understandably so — it shouldn’t be forgotten that this is Duke’s second of three Saturday-Monday swings in the schedule. Waiting on the other side of this is a trip to Miami for a chance to sweep the season series.

Duke is the team with the momentum, having the look of a team that’s turned the corner in the past week. UNC’s home loss to Pitt wasn’t necessarily a “bad” loss, but it’s fair to say one team enters this game riding high and the other has a sour taste in its mouth.

And yet …

“I would definitely say we’ve made a lot of improvements and strides from when we first started the season,” Filipowski said. “Watching film and preparing for Wake Forest this time and watching film from the first time, I think we’ve come a long way and we’re playing the best we have.

“But I still think there’s so much more we can do and how much better we can be.”

The Blue Devils still have the highest ceiling in the ACC. The learning curve has been sharper because of some injuries, one of them (Dariq Whitehead) still needing to be resolved. Growth hasn’t been linear, but it’s certainly come rapidly in the last 10 days.

Then comes this game; the ultimate measuring stick.