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There has been a lot of talk about Duke assistant coach Chris Carrawell snubbing UNC coach Hubert Davis in the handshake line after Saturday’s game. There were also suggestions from the Duke side that it was because Davis didn’t shake hands with the assistant coaches before Carolina’s historic 94–81 victory to ruin Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final Cameron Indoor Stadium game.
Sometimes the best individual games in the NBA come in losses and that was the case Monday night for Harrison Barnes and Coby White, whose teams couldn’t overcome big nights from opposing stars. Barnes scored 23 points and three 3-pointers in Sacramento’s 131–115 home loss to New York and White had 19 points and three 3-pointers in Chicago’s 121–106 defeat at Philadelphia.
North Carolina slipped two spots to No. 18 in the latest AP Top 25 women’s basketball poll after losing to Virginia Tech in an ACC Tournament quarterfinal game Friday. All but one team below UNC in last week’s poll that played lost at least one game and the two teams ahead of the Tar Heels (23–6) in last week’s poll also lost.
After being unranked for 15 consecutive weeks, North Carolina returned to the AP Top 25 at No. 25, thanks to the Tar Heels’ impressive road upset of Duke. UNC (23–5) was ranked No. 19 in the preseason poll and No. 18 on Nov. 15 but fell out of the poll after losing to Purdue and Tennessee in the Hall of Fame Classic in Uncasville, Conn., and didn’t return until its historic victory to ruin Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final Cameron Indoor Stadium game.
While conference tournament play starts this week for many, it has already ended in frustration for Brandon Huffman’s Jacksonville State team. But Garrison Brooks hit a big career milestone and Walker Kessler was named as a Wooden Award finalist. The Gamecocks, the tournament’s top seed, lost Saturday at home 54–51 in the ASUN Tournament semifinals to Jacksonville, with Huffman scoreless for the third game this season but for the first time since Jan. 8. He contributed four rebounds, one block and one steal.
If you were looking forward to watching Cameron Johnson on national TV Sunday after his career-best game on Friday night, that unfortunately won’t happen. Johnson had 38 points and nine 3-pointers off the bench in Phoenix’s 115–114 home victory Friday over New York and banked in a buzzer-beating 3-pointer. But he’ll miss the Suns’ 3:30 Sunday game at Milwaukee (ABC) with a contusion to his right quad.
DURHAM — After a historic Carolina victory over No. 4 Duke that can only be topped by a Final Four win against the Blue Devils, the Tar Heels guaranteed that they won’t have to deal with their rivals until the ACC Tournament final. Before UNC’s impressive 94–81 victory Saturday to ruin Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium, a semifinal matchup in Brooklyn appeared likely.
DURHAM — Many nights, the question is when or if Caleb Love will flip the offensive switch and whether it will be enough. It came late Monday and pushed Carolina to an overtime win over Syracuse. Saturday at Cameron Indoor Stadium, that switch flipped on Love’s jumper with 12:33 left after hitting only 1 of his first 12 shots. He scored nine points in the next three minutes to help Carolina take control before going on to a 94–81 upset Saturday of No. 4 Duke
Cameron Johnson did it all for league-leading Phoenix on Friday night, scoring 38 points and nine 3-pointers, both career-highs, in only 28 minutes off the bench. He banked in a game-winning, buzzer-beating 3 to push the host Suns to a 115–114 victory over New York. Johnson joined Portland’s Damian Lillard (2019) as the only players in NBA history to hit a game-winning 3-pointer with at least nine 3s in a game. Johnson’s previous career-high was 24 points but he scored 21 Friday in the fourth quarter alone.
GREENSBORO — Kids can lighten up even the most frustrating days and Coach Courtney Banghart’s three children soothed her and the team after No. 16 Carolina’s unexpected early exit from the ACC Tournament. With one seven-year-old twin son, Eli, on her lap, the other, Tucker, on Alyssa Ustby’s lap and Banghart’s six-year-old daughter Gray on Deja Kelly’s lap, the coach and players talked in the postgame press conference about how Friday’s quarterfinal game with No. 21 Virginia Tech went awry in overtime for an 87–80 quarterfinals loss.
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