UNC beats Duke at home, 93-84

For the ones who work hard to ensure their crew can always go the extra mile, and the ones who get in early so everyone can go home on time, there's Grainger. Offering professional-grade supplies backed by product experts so you can quickly and easily find what you need. Plus, you can count on access to a committed team ready to go the extra mile for you.

Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Grainger. For the ones who get it done. North Carolina is absolutely a national championship contender. 100% a contender to win this title. I'm not making them a favorite, but they are absolutely unequivocally in the mix. What don't they have? What element do they not have? They have size, they can score around the goal. They don't have an abundance of three-point shooting.

What they do have showed up well enough. Harrison Ingram was essentially their three-point shooting. But they absolutely have enough three-point shooting to win. Their defense is outstanding. Do not be fooled by 84 points scored by Duke. Carolina's defense was excellent.

Don't be fooled by it. Their defense was, I thought, really good. And it was really good where it needed to be really good. They made life difficult for Kyle Filipowski. Adam Smith, Inside Carolina.

My friend joins us on the Adam Gold show. All right, sir, your thoughts. I don't care how, if you could Homer it up, for all I care. Those guys were dynamite in the game. Ingram, Baycott. I thought Cadell was dynamite too. Your thoughts on 93-84.

I thought, AG, first of all, great to see you again. I thought Carolina took the fight to him. I did not expect UNC to lose to Georgia Tech earlier in the week last week.

I didn't see that one coming. What I'm saying is that I thought if UNC lost before they played Duke, they would lose at FSU, just with the length. I thought FSU was playing better. I guess what I'm getting at is that when UNC lost to Georgia Tech, which was disconcerting, it was the worst game of the season. They shot the worst from the field, the free throw line.

It was not one that you put in the time capsule to look back on. But I thought coming out of that, talking to those guys that night in Atlanta, and then when we got back here and talked to them a couple days before they played Duke, I expected them to come out swinging is what I'm trying to say. I sort of expected them to play well. And I don't know if you guys have talked about it, but Armando, I mean, he'll tell you everything that's going on if you ask him. And he told us on Thursday of last week before they played Duke that they had gotten back from Atlanta late Tuesday night, and they had decided to have a players only meeting in the locker room after they got back. Before they went home, they sat in the locker room at the Dean Dome and talked for like two hours.

And I don't think it was an airing of grievances, and I don't think it was heated. I think they just had a conversation is the way it sounds. And I don't know, all those things sort of made me feel like you were going to sort of see the performance they got on Saturday night. I mean, I thought I thought that they were tenacious.

I thought they were physical. I heard you during the lead-in about their defense. UNC's defense has gone to another level this season.

They have unlocked another level defensively. And, you know, they're the first place team in the ACC, and I thought they looked like it Saturday night. Oh, I'm not sure there's a second place team in the ACC. I think Duke's very good, but I think there's a big gap between North Carolina and Duke.

Adam Smith from Inside Carolina joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. Here's the thing about the... Well, speaking specifically to Baycott, because, I mean, I think Carolina has been great other than the Georgia Tech game, pretty much. They haven't had great first halves. Even at Florida State, wasn't great in the first half. Was it Clemson?

I didn't think it was... Whichever game they played in between that. They trailed Blake at the half? Yeah, they trailed... No, that was the game, right?

And then they just got nuclear on them? Yeah. But honestly, as long as you're not blown out, if you're within arm's length at halftime, to me, the first half is almost meaningless. Every once in a while, you can let it give a team life and belief.

I get it. But good teams, great teams, and I think Carolina's a great team. You know, you just reset. You have a mental reset at halftime, and then boom. You come out in the second half. That's what they did to Wake. That's what they did to Florida State.

The Georgia Tech game, for me, was a throwaway. It won't matter a lick that they lost. It won't stop them from being a one seed. It's not going to stop them from doing anything they want to do. They'll probably lose another stupid game between now and the end of the year. I mean, really, they'll lose a game.

You go, how? Honestly, how? And that's just the nature of the beast. But I thought that Baycott, even when they were winning these games, had become their fourth best player, which, good or bad, I mean, that's what I viewed him.

Davis and Ingram, and then insert another player, depending on who it was. Baycott had just been okay, been ordinary. I guess he took all of that, not what I said, but the fact that his numbers were down 29 points combined in the four previous games. I guess he took all of it personal and took it all out on the darker blue. You know, there's some people around here that, I mean Chapel Hill today, and there's some people around here that think that he's just been saving himself for March. You know, it's his fifth year and he's an older guy, and you know how it is when you get a little older. I have no idea what you're talking about. It happens to the best of us. What is he? You just had a birthday. Oh my God. On Armando, on the subject of Armando.

You're right. I mean, he had had three straight single digit games. The production in terms of when you pull up the box score did not jump off the page for a guy who, you know, his career numbers are great.

But, you know, the other night, what was it? 25 points, 10 rebounds, five assists. You know, he hadn't really taken a lot of shots in the previous couple games before they played Duke. He just, I mean, there was one game, I think it was two for four from the field. You know, a lot of times when he catches it down there, he's doubled a lot of times. And, you know, R.J. Davis has been scoring at such a clip. I mean, I think he had led them in eight straight games and scoring. But it was interesting and I know you watched it the other night and, you know, the very first play, they ran a double screen to get Armando. He caught the ball on the block and he went straight up.

I mean, he could have dunked it if he wanted to. But, you know, they have, you know, there are Hubert Davis detractors out there. They're quiet this year. But they have, they run so many different actions and plays from game to game. Stuff that, that play the other night, I hadn't seen them do that before. You know, they have a deep Hubert Davis and Jeff Lebo and Sean May and Brad Frederick over there.

They have, they have a deep bag of stuff. I don't know if you noticed it later in the game where Duke had chose, you know, pretty much all night to face guard R.J. Davis. And they were sagging off Elliott Cadeau big time, you know, going to give him the shot. Well, they had Cadeau feed it down to Bacot in the post. And then instead of standing out there all alone, he went and screened for R.J. Davis.

Here he comes off of a Cadeau pick and R.J. Davis, you know, 13 points in the second half. But yeah, Armando, it was a, it was a, we called it a statement game through his chipped teeth is what we called it inside Carolina. Five chipped teeth from Filipowski. I mean, I don't think that's in the stat line.

Oh, I was unaware of chipped teeth. Look, I think there were a lot of reasons to be disappointed in Kyle Filipowski's play. I didn't like some of the stuff at the end. I didn't like the, who was it, was it to R.J.?

It wasn't an elbow, an arm that didn't need to be there. I didn't like, I mean, I don't know that it was intentional on Bacot, but I think Filipowski was clearly frustrated. I didn't like his last four, five, six minutes of the game. But I mean, I mean, if you're looking for a reason why Duke didn't play well, I mean, I, I think we start there. There are other players who didn't play well, but they're not winning any game on with Kyle Filipowski playing substandard basketball.

Real quick, only got about a minute or so left. I know that he had not played in this rivalry before, but does, does Harrison Ingram not exude everything that we want from Duke versus Carolina? I mean, that guy looked like he grew up in the rivalry.

Harrison Ingram, you said a minute, I could go for the rest of the afternoon on Harrison Ingram. He is, he has been for the UNC basketball team, for the assembled press corps. He has been wonderful.

I mean, he is, he, he is just such a great dude to talk to and you see what the type of piece that he has been. I mean, from the, the, the rebounding, from the production, and then from the intangible standpoint. I mean, he's got sort of a tenacity, you know, that he plays with. If there's ever, ever sort of a dust up during a game, you saw it against Kentucky and Atlanta. You saw it against Oklahoma and Charlotte. You saw it against Villanova, the Bahamas. Harrison Ingram's usually in the middle of it for UNC. He does not, he does not mind getting chesty and, you know, for a guy who went to Stanford who, I mean, he's a, he's a dang genius as a human being.

Right. He's got a little bit of that back alley in him. I mean, heck, what was it? The night in Raleigh, he took out Wendell Murphy.

He dove over the thing and it was unbelievable. He was, he actually, I've gotten to know him pretty well. He's asking me about it after the game about Wendell Murphy. He's saying, you know, the older gentleman, and I said, Harrison, that's, that's one of the richest men in North Carolina. It's a benefactor of two schools.

I mean, right. You know, his name is on the football facility over there and he's just died. But he, he has, he, you know, it was his first taste of the rivalry and he really took a big bite out of it, I would say, for your corny newspaper he leads there. But, you know, to finish the thought on it, I think, you know, getting to know him, he has wanted this AG, like he, he has talked about wanting to play on stages like this, wanting to be a part of teams like this.

He hasn't played in the NCAA tournament before. I know. There's a couple guys on this team, like a Cormac Ryan, like they want what, they want a season like UNC is putting together. You can feel it from them. And interestingly enough, some of these transfers like Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan have become the vocal leaders and they weren't even here the last couple of years.

We have to, we have to let you go, but I'm getting, no, it's fine, it's fine. I'm getting Brady Manik vibes. Seriously, I'm getting Brady Manik vibes more from Ingram than from Ryan, but I think Ryan exhibits a lot of those traits as well. I do think those guys are helping to be leaders and they are catalysts for this team.

We will talk again very soon. Adam Smith inside Carolina. Adam underscore Smith underscore IC. Very similar. You have not quite as many underscores as Victoria in her Twitter, but very true. You're close. You're at least within one or one or two, I believe. She's a good role model to follow. Yes. You both are for me. I'm going to add an underscore just for giggles. I'll talk to you very soon, man. Thank you, buddy. See you later.