The most despised program in college basketball was down 13 to its archrival with four minutes remaining. It was also down its best player. Its win probability had dipped to around 2%. This was not the first seemingly unsurmountable deficit Duke faced at North Carolina on Saturday night. Remarkably, it would not be the last.
But over the next hour, exactly eight years after one of the most memorable buzzer-beaters in Duke-Carolina history, a dull college basketball season exploded into life. A previously mundane game became an instant classic. The Blue Devils beat two buzzers and twice resuscitated themselves when live odds told them, Don’t even bother trying.