Duke Basketball: Takeaways from stunning overtime win at North Carolina

CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA - FEBRUARY 08: Wendell Moore Jr. #0 of the Duke Blue Devils reacts after making the game winning shot to defeat the North Carolina Tar Heels 98-96 with teammate Jordan Goldwire #14 during their game at Dean Smith Center on February 08, 2020 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /

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CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA – FEBRUARY 08: Tre Jones #3 of the Duke Blue Devils (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /

At one point Duke Basketball had a 2.3% chance to win on Saturday night after being down by 13 with less than four minutes left in the game, but they still got the job done.

Duke basketball played a horrible game on Saturday night, but they still did what good teams always find a way to do, get the win.

The three keys to winning this game for Duke on Saturday night were to contain Cole Anthony, get the ball to Vernon Carey jr. and to not play to North Carolina’s level, they failed to do two and a half of these things and yet they still won this game.

Cole Anthony had 24 points (which to be fair UNC completely ran out of players and at times it seemed as if he was the only player they had left), Vernon Carey jr. had 18 points (all in the first half) and Duke 100% played down to UNC’s level.

Because they failed to do these things they were down 13 with less than four to go and had to go to overtime where they trailed by five with 16 seconds left and yet they still won this game. How they pulled this game off is a mystery and it can only be described as one word; miracle.

But that is exactly how these games go, in the 100 games between the rivals leading up to Saturday night, both Duke and UNC had won 50 games while scoring exactly 7,746 points. If this tells you anything, it tells you that Saturday night was a perfect representation of how these games go, the best teams don’t always win no matter how good they might be.

However, the best team did win on Saturday night and the fact that they came down from so many deficits in the manner in which they did should prove that statement to be true.

But at the end of the day, in a game in which they played so horribly and in a game they probably shouldn’t have won, what are the three biggest takeaways for Duke?

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