By R.L. Bynum
CHAPEL HILL — With his first Carolina-Duke game slipping away from the Tar Heels in the first half, Caleb Wilson wasn’t about to let the Blue Devils coast to victory.
He scored 13 points during a key first-half run, including 11 in less than 3½ minutes, that steadied the game. That put No. 14 UNC on a path toward finally beating No. 4 Duke 71–68 on Seth Trimble’s last-second 3-pointer Saturday night at the Smith Center.
“I knew we needed a spark,” Wilson said. “I’m not a selfish player, so I always try to get my teammates involved. But when my team needed me, and I saw that they did, I just had to go.”
In a word Wilson kept coming down to describe the night, it was “crazy.”
Wilson led UNC with 17 of his team-high 23 points in the first half to go along with two assists, two steals and a highlight block of a shot from freshman rival Cameron Boozer.
The stage was everything a freshman could imagine, and then some.
“It was exactly how I thought it was gonna be,” Wilson said. “Me and my teammates had a great game. We pulled it together. We stuck together at the end. And it was a great win.”
Down double digits early, Wilson admitted the Tar Heels had to find their edge.
“I was frustrated because we got off to a slow start,” Wilson said. “We need a team to win; it can’t just be me. It can’t just be Seth. It can’t be just Henri [Veesaar]. So, I felt like we just had to band together and get the win at the end.”
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That mindset of pushing without drifting into “me” basketball became important as UNC spent the second half grinding back possession by possession. Duke had control of the tempo for long stretches, and it wasn’t always pretty for Carolina.
But Wilson said the Heels stayed connected, searching for answers rather than panicking.
“We just stuck with it, honestly,” Wilson said. “At the end of the game, we focused on what they were doing to try to neutralize.”
Carolina’s stops on defense finally stacked up. The ball moved with more purpose. And when Trimble drilled the game-winning 3 with 0.4 of a second left, the sound in the Smith Center was deafening. A wave of students crashed onto the court, receded while officials reset the clock, then crashed again.
Wilson had never been in the middle of anything like it.
“The atmosphere actually was crazy,” he said. “I never been a part of a court storm. So that was crazy.”
The postgame scene only sharpened how quickly Wilson’s first UNC–Duke chapter had become a memory he’ll carry forever. The locker room celebration was chaotic as the team celebrated a win that will be replayed for years to come.
“It was crazy,” Wilson said. “Water everywhere. Seth gets celebrated, but he deserved it completely. It was just a lot of fun. When he made it, I was like, ‘Man, that’s a hell of a way to beat Duke in your senior year.’ ”
Wilson, who has embraced the rivalry’s weight since arriving in Chapel Hill two years after being in the dressing room following another big win over Duke, said the atmosphere pushed him into another gear.
“Honestly, the fans, the environment, really made me play at a whole ’nother level,” he said.
And when the game came down to one final possession, it was Trimble’s moment — a senior delivering the kind of shot that lives forever in UNC lore. Wilson watched as the corner 3 splashed through and the Smith Center erupted.
“That shit was crazy,” Wilson said. “That was insane. Court storm, game-winning three, all that. Just feels like a dream. That’s exactly why I came. The atmospheres and stuff like that.”
For Wilson, the win was a dream realized, but also a reminder of what’s ahead.
“I lived up to it,” he said. “Yeah, we still got to play them again. You know, it was a great win, but it’s a long season … it’s always on to the next.”
And in the back of his mind, his lone trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium in March has to have him excited.
Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics
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