There may only be nine games left in the college basketball regular season, but with the NFL season ending on Sunday, Saturday night marks the actual start of the college basketball season for a lot of people. It is, of course, Carolina vs Duke Round 1. It’s the best rivalry in college basketball if not all of sports, it’s about to be played in front of a raucous 22,000 people, and it has delivered some of the most iconic moments in the sport that people still speak of to this day.
You don’t really need me to hype this anymore, so let’s just skip right ahead to three things to look in this version of the rivalry.
Cameron Boozer vs. Caleb Wilson
We can look into the numbers as much as we all want to, but let’s be honest—all eyes are going to be on the two top rookies in the ACC this year. Boozer’s 23.3 points and 9.9 rebounds per game versus Wilson’s 20.0 points and 9.8 rebounds per game. Bigger than that though is the fact that these two players are the ones that their teams rally around. They are fighting each other not just for Rookie of the Year, but Player of the Year. They are consistently listed as top five draft picks, with most putting Boozer ahead of Wilson at this point.
It’s the sort of stuff ESPN loves.
College basketball coverage on ESPN these days isn’t so much about the actual game as it is about pumping up their NBA product that they’ve paid billions for, and building momentum not for the NCAA Tournament but the NBA Draft that they produce. That both players came into their respective schools hyped up and have held up their ends of the bargain and more just makes this the matchup that everyone is going to zero in on—including Boozer and Wilson themselves.
Wilson has arguably made more highlight-worthy plays this year while Boozer has been the more consistent player. It’s almost the higher floor/taller ceiling argument. More than that, though, some years you get players that are hyped up for this matchup and they don’t really want to be part of the spotlight. That’s not the case for these two and especially Wilson. They’ll feed into it, and watching the two go up against each other should be a lot of fun.
Guard Play
The Tar Heels finally embraced Derek Dixon being the starting point guard, and while you can argue he’s played on the big stage against Virginia—this is easily his biggest test in that role. Since losing in his first start against Cal, the Tar Heels are undefeated including that win against the Wahoos, and the shift with him out running the team versus Kyan Evans is night and day.
The problem is that as fun as the Boozer/Wilson matchup will be, where Carolina might run into real issues is on other positions on the floor and point guard may be the big one. Caleb Foster is the floor general for Duke and he’s got an extra two years of experience playing in the college game from Dixon, not to mention actually being the starter since the jump of the season. He consistently plays over 20 minutes a game, has a 2-1 assist to turnover ratio, is rarely in foul trouble, and stands even with Dixon on the court.
So many of Carolina’s issues were tied to that position and it’s hard not to see the Blue Devils having an advantage there. We’ll see how this matchup goes, but it could be the sneaky key to how this result turns.
Guarding the Three
On the season, Duke is making 33.8% from beyond the arc, and it makes sense when they have the domination down low that they aren’t as dependent on the long ball to score. That said, considering how much of an issue that stat has been for the Tar Heels you wonder just how much attention they’ll give to Boozer to where they’ll dare Duke to beat them from outside.
That’s also where Foster comes in, as he’s their best three point shooter, going 38.6% from three, followed closely by Boozer going 37.5%. Much like Henri Veessaar, Boozer’s game isn’t all about the three but he can absolutely shoot it from out there and with the Tar Heels’ height you can see them trying to exploit it like others have. Since the Cal game, opponents are still shooting 37.3% from three, so while the numbers have been better and offensively Carolina has been able to match, it’s still a big point of concern.
Height wise Duke doesn’t have the same advantage over Carolina that they did last year, but skill wise they do. For all of the fun things to look forward to, it really all just falls back to that little line doesn’t it?