Even in time of transition for Duke and UNC, circumstances change, but emotions do not

The stars of screen and stage stayed away from this one, ex-quarterbacks and ex-presidents alike. In this changing of the guards, the national spotlight didn’t shine quite so brightly, as it has so often in the past.

Between the lines, or even between these walls, you’d never know a single thing had changed, that a legend had so recently departed the scene. Even Cameron Indoor Stadium’s sometimes-placid upper bowl was as raucous as it’s been in a long time.

In this building, in these zip codes, in this area code, it meant as much to both teams and everyone around them as it ever did, whether Duke and North Carolina were ranked or atop the ACC or not. And neither was.

It was so loud.

It was still so good.

Right down to the last minute.

And in the end, after Duke ran out the clock on a 63-57 win, Paolo Banchero and Mark Williams got to experience something they missed as players: Running off the floor, slapping hands with the students, after a win over North Carolina in Cameron. Jeremy Roach, the only key returnee from last year’s team, certainly had some unfinished business as well.

“Just coming in with that motivation from last year,” Roach said, “and giving it to them like we did today.”

Given the circumstances — not only the way last season ended, but with Mike Krzyzewski somewhere, anywhere other than Cameron, as he had promised — the usual suspects stayed away. Tony Romo and Floyd Mayweather and their ilk apparently had better things to do.

In their stead were more of those personally invested in the result. Barack Obama may not have showed up for this one, but the governor certainly did. Banchero and Williams and Wendell Carter and Mason Plumlee soaked up the atmosphere, at one point plunging into the heaving mass of students. Sam Howell, Drake Maye and Cole Anthony sat behind the UNC bench.

Maybe it was better that way, on this night. They understood what celebrities and tourists never could: That even in a time of transition, when both teams being unranked has become less of a once-in-a-generation anomaly, the circumstances may change but the emotion does not.

And did the circumstances ever change this time around. This series has been defined over the years by bursts of scoring, by backboard-threatening dunks, by building-silencing, buzzer-beating 3-pointers. Saturday was instead a game decided almost exclusively by defense, its biggest star and most influential player nearly an afterthought on offense.

Dereck Lively didn’t just block eight shots — a Duke record in the rivalry — but altered shots coming from the other side of the lane, went body-to-body with Armando Bacot, and generally menaced one end of the court and not so much the other, at least until his putback dunk of a Roach miss with 95 seconds to go broke a 57-57 tie and put Duke in the lead for good.

This Duke team isn’t as offensively blessed as many of its predecessors — “We don’t have a Paolo, you know, that’s for sure,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said — but unlike those teams it has built an identity entirely around its defense, possession by possession, game by game. It ended up being one of the lower-scoring games in the modern era of the rivalry, a distinct departure from so many run-and-gun games in the past, when 63-57 would have felt like a halftime score.

But some things never change, especially hurt feelings. Hubert Davis was unabashedly bitter that North Carolina attempted only three free throws, none in the second half. He’s not the first coach to exit Cameron salty about not getting a good whistle — “You answer it,” Davis said. “we attacked the basket” — but he may be the first whose team has had free-throw advantages of 39-12 (against N.C. State) and 23-3 (at Syracuse) in recent days only to face a 15-3 disadvantage against Duke.

Davis may be right that UNC draws more fouls than anyone else in the ACC for a reason, but sympathy cards are most likely not forthcoming from Kevin Keatts (whose team is third in the ACC in free-throw attempts) and Jim Boeheim (fifth). This is how the other half lives.

Saturday’s trio of attempts from the stripe tied for the third-fewest in school history with, among others, a Feb. 3, 1923 game at Duke, a 100-year flood of frustration. North Carolina didn’t even have a coach that year, although the News & Observer did note that “there were only twelve free shots in the entire game” as “the North Carolina quint, champion of the south in 1922” posted a 20-19 win over “the Trinity Methodists.”

Maybe things really don’t change that much after all, from game to game or from century to century. The cauldron bubbles on, even when the recipe changes.

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