If you watched the Duke-UNC Final Four semifinal game Saturday night, you were treated to a thrilling matchup that resulted in the Tar Heels spoiling their rivals' chance at a sixth National Championship and ending Mike Krzyzewski's legendary career at Duke with an 81-77 victory.
There was obviously a lot of hype and eyeballs on this game, so many in fact that it made television history for a college basketball game.
As the numbers come in from Saturday's game, which saw over 10 lead changes and 12 ties, the matchup is projected to average 16.3 million viewers, which makes it the second-most-watched basketball game in television history when accounting for out-of-home viewership, falling only behind 2015's Final Four semifinal game between Kentucky and Wisconsin.
If you watched the entire game until the final buzzer, you may or may not have noticed that most of Duke's players, including potential top 3 pick Paolo Banchero, decided to skip out on the handshake line, a college basketball tradition that has come under a lot of heat since Juwan Howard's incident in Madison when his Wolverines played Wisconsin.
To be fair, emotions were running very after such a closely contested game, and with the stakes being so high, with this being Coach K's last ride. The Blue Devils were engaged in a back and forth with their rival until the Tar Heels pulled away late, led by Caleb Love’s three-pointer with 28 seconds left--hitting a pair of clutch free throws in the final seconds to help the Tar Heels advanced to the National Championship game.
All the credit to Hubert Davis and the rest of his players for not making a big deal about it. It should be expected that there would be some bad blood between these two programs, considering the importance of the event and the UNC-Duke rivalry being one of the greatest in all of sports. Not to mention this was the first time that both schools have met in the Final Four despite their program's illustrious history in college basketball.
The Tar Heels take on the Kansas Jayhawks in the National Championship Game Monday night at 9:20 p.m. Kansas opens up as a -4 point favorite.
Related
Follow Jasper Jones on Twitter: @jonesj2342
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow Audacy Sports
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram