UNC Sweeps Season Series with Duke to Win ACC Regular Season

In the final day of regular season games for the ACC, none was bigger than the fierce rivalry matchup featuring North Carolina and Duke. The game was for more than bragging rights though, as North Carolina topped Duke to win their first outright ACC regular season title in seven years. North Carolina came into the game up one game in the standings on Duke, so they would have shared the title had the Blue Devils been able to win at home. The Tar Heels never trailed in this one, their largest lead of 15 coming early in the game up 21-6. 

Senior transfer Cormac Ryan was the star today for North Carolina, finishing with a season-high 31 points on a pristine 8-12 from the field, 6-8 from the three-point line, and 9-10 from the free-throw line. Senior leaders RJ Davis and Armando Bacot only combined for 18 points, but scoring wasn’t as necessary with Cormac Ryan being on the heater that he was. Duke was led by forward Kyle Filipowski who scored 23 points and seven rebounds in the losing effort. There was also a video surfacing on Twitter that showed Filipowski appear to trip Tar Heels’ player Harrison Ingram. Freshman guard Jared McCain, who is also a part-time TikTok influencer, dropped 19 points and seven rebounds for the Blue Devils. 

North Carolina ended the regular season with a record of 25-6, heading into the ACC tournament as the number one seed. The Tar Heels have now closed out the season on a six-game winning streak and may be able to make a strong case for the fourth number-one seed in the NCAA tournament with an ACC tournament title. Duke finishes at 24-7 and will be the second seed in the ACC tournament. It looks as though they will be a three-seed in the NCAA tournament, but they could move down a seed line as well with a poor showing in the conference tournament. Hey, at least Jared McCain was able to serenade the Cameron Crazies pregame with the ‘2 days into college’ song that he made viral on TikTok.