January 27, 2018

DURHAM -- It was a relatively nice January day in Durham, the site for a major clash of two basketball programs ranked near the top of the Associated Press Top 25. No. 4 Duke was hosting No. 2 Virginia at Cameron Indoor Stadium, a building the Cavaliers hadn’t won in since 1995.

Kryzewskiville (outside of Cameron Indoor) was buzzing a few hours before tip-off, with students congregating and imbibing before lining up to go inside. As I approached the media entrance to the building, a teenage boy tapped his father and pointed to Stadium’s Jeff Goodman, walking in front of me, and said “that’s Lavar Ball’s best friend.” (This was just after Goodman had been with the Ball family during their stint in Lithuania.)

Virginia entered that Saturday matinee with a 19-1 record, with the lone loss coming at West Virginia back in early December. Since that night in Morgantown, UVa had won 11 straight games and was 8-0 in ACC play. Duke, meanwhile, was 18-2, with its two losses coming on the road at BC and at NC State. The Blue Devils, once again led by a cast of elite freshmen complimented by a few talented veterans, had one of the nation’s best offenses, squaring off against UVa’s always challenging defense, which finished the season ranked first in efficiency.

Inside the building, anticipation was building for a game that was nearly as significant as a January regular season game can be, this one televised nationally on CBS. If you’re a college hoops junkie and have never been to Cameron Indoor for a big ACC game, you should do your best to make it happen, granted the price point is usually prohibitive. While nearly everything about Duke basketball is reviled by most Virginia fans, the gym is a special place. It feels so small, it’s age and lack of modernity shows through right away, and it can be downright claustrophobic. But the building is perfect for college basketball viewing without a bad seat in the house, and it has to be the most unique arenas in the sport, considering how big a program plays there.

On this day, the student section was jammed in long before tip-off, just as warmups were commencing. Even the media seating was over capacity, as a mix-up led to Streaking the Lawn’s Caroline Darney being left off the courtside seating chart. After a few panicked moments, the Duke media team offered her a chance to sit among the Cameron Crazies, directly behind where I would sit, and she accepted. I recommend when you’re done reading this one, you go check out her story from her time behind enemy lines.

As tip-off approached and I squeezed into my seat with students literally on my back, it really felt that we were in for a special afternoon. The atmosphere was great, then Duke commit Zion Williamson was in the house, and UVa’s players seemed very loose prior to tip-off. With the two teams lined up for the national anthem and the Crazies losing their mind to “Everytime We Touch,” a Cameron Indoor tradition, several Cavaliers, including Ty Jerome, mouthed the words to the song and certainly seemed to embrace the chaos rather than worrying about it.

Just before tip-off a veteran sportswriter sitting to my left, who shall remain nameless, accidentally put the leg of his chair down on the exposed foot of a student behind us, sending her into hysterics that would only be matched by a late-game flop from Grayson Allen (we’ll get there), and led the writer to turn around and exclaim “SORRY! I’m trying to work!” Given the over-the-top response to this very clearly accidental and minor injury, I support this response and really felt like it set the tone for what would be an intense game.

Duke won the tip and quickly jumped out to a 4-0 lead. Ultimately, it would be its largest lead of the contest. UVa would go on a 9-0 run to take a 12-6 advantage after a defensive struggle broke out in the first few minutes. Duke kept the game close but Virginia controlled the pace with key made shots from Kyle Guy and Devon Hall early. A Marvin Bagley dunk pulled the Devils within four at 18-14 and then the Hoos broke the game open a bit. A Hunter layup at 8:31 put them up nine and back-to-back layups by Jerome, the second of which sent him to the line for an and-one, gave the Cavaliers a 30-18 lead with just over three minutes left in the half. Virginia led 32-22 at the breakand Hall canned a corner 3 just 12 seconds into the second half to put the Wahoos up 35-22, seemingly in control.

And then Duke rallied, and the game got good. Before the first media timeout, the Blue Devils had cut the lead to 35-31, and the crowd was into the game. At 14:40, Wendell Carter accidentally made a 3-pointer on what was supposed to be a lob pass into Bagley under the basket. There was also a foul called underneath and out of the TV timeout Duke made it a five-point possession, seemingly by mistake, when Carter slammed home a well-executed alley-oop on the inbounds pass from Trevon Duval. The game was now tied, and a Bagley layup put the Devils up 41-39 with 12:44 to go. It was their first lead since it was 6-5.

The rest of the game was simply excellent. Both teams played hard on both ends of the floor, and neither team was able to separate. Virginia’s offense heated up once the Hoos started attacking Duke’s 2-3 zone, particularly with Hunter, who kept making plays at the rim around Duke’s two talented big men. Hunter had a scary moment with just under five minutes to go, when he rolled his ankle on a made layup to give UVa a two-point lead. The injury looked serious but ultimately he was able to return to the contest.

By this point, Cameron was in a frenzy. The Duke fans roared with every made basket or stop, only to be countered by a much smaller but noticeable Cavalier contingent behind the UVa bench, which echoed through the building’s silence with every Virignia bucket. Guy hit a massive corner 3 on a missed defensive assignment that gave his team the 60-55 lead with 3:19 to go, but Duke wouldn’t go away. A Bagley slam brought the Devils within two with 1:37 left, setting up a frantic finish. It’s worth noting how excellent the freshman big man was on the afternoon for Duke: Bagley scored a game-high 30 points on 13 made field goals, hitting a few huge shots to keep Duke in the game in the second half.

After Bagley’s dunk made it 60-58, it was gut check time for the Hoos. Recent Cavalier teams had been in this spot in Durham before but had come up just short. In 2014, Malcolm Brogdon hit a pair of free throws with 37 seconds left to put them up one in hopes of ending a then 19-year long drought at Cameron, only to have Rasheed Suliamon hit a go-ahead 3 with 18 seconds to go on the way to another Duke win. And in 2016, Brogdon again put the Cavaliers up in the final minute only to have their hopes dashed with a Grayson Allen buzzer beater to win the game, after he seemingly traveled but wasn’t called for it.

This time, the Cavaliers finished. Guy missed what would’ve been a dagger 3 with just over a minute to play, and Jerome saved the day by picking off a long pass from Duval, giving the Wahoos another possession with a one-point lead. And Jerome made Duke pay for that mistake, shaking Duval with a ball fake and hitting a dagger from NBA range with 37.6 seconds to play, stunning the Crazies and putting the Cavaliers up 63-58.

The drama wasn’t quite over though, as Bagley hit a long 3 to pull Duke within a pair, but Guy knocked down both ends of a one-and-one to all but seal the deal for the Cavaliers. (Not the last time he would do that for the Hoos, was it?) Bagley’s tip in at the buzzer was simply a footnote, and UVa finally ended its misery at Duke with a 65-63 win that kept the Cavaliers atop the league standings.

As I walked back from courtside to the media room for the press conferences, I was surprised at the reaction of many of the Duke students who had been sitting directly behind me, now walking alongside me to the exit. Most of them were not angry or upset, but admitted that Virginia was a good team, and that Duke had played hard and simply come up short. There was some praise for Jerome as well, who at that time seemingly was a relatively unknown commodity to the Crazies. A few Duke students were chatting me up on the way to the exit about Jerome in particular and one asked if he takes deep 3s often, like the one he hit in the final minute of the game, or if that was just an outlier. I said something like “He takes them and he makes them.”

The Result:

No. 2 UVa 65

No. 4 Duke 63

While this group of Virginia players wasn’t responsible for the long losing streak at Cameron Indoor, it was clear in talking to them after the game that they were happy to have that monkey off their back. Hall was on the bench for those losses in 2014 and 2016, and knew how close they had been to winning both or either of those contests.

Fans don’t play in the games, but there’s no doubt that the atmosphere at Duke is a factor. Students chant things at players all game long, and it’s hard to explain just how close they are to the court, making their presence felt. When Duke rallied in the second half, culminated with Carter’s stuff to tie the game at 39, it was the loudest I’ve ever heard a college basketball venue, with the only other exception maybe the Williamson dunk on Jay Huff the following year.

And when Jerome canned that dagger 3 in the final minute, it wasn’t the quietest I’ve ever heard a building but it was definitely the most deflated. You could hear the gasps and exasperation from the crowd behind me and the exaltation from the UVa bench across from me. That’s the play that everyone remembers from that game. The shot was huge, but I think my lasting memory will just be the back and forth nature that led up to it. Both teams were putting forth great effort, and it was a really close contest with haymakers traded each way. It was a high-level basketball game, and Virginia came out on top that day. UVa went on to lose to UMBC and Duke didn’t make the Final Four either, but it was still a great game to watch between two very talented, well-coached programs, and one of the most entertaining games that I’ve ever been to or covered.

As I left the arena about an hour after the buzzer sounded, my ears were still ringing and I had a four-hour drive home to look forward to. But getting to cover a game at Cameron Indoor, a true bucket list sports destination for me since I was a kid, and watching a No. 2-ranked UVa team end its long losing streak there in the process, was a moment I’ll never forget.

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