In an already strange college basketball season, the Duke-North Carolina rivalry finds itself unable to escape the oddness.
The two Atlantic Coast Conference men's programs with a combined 11 NCAA championships typically are among the nation's elite as they charge into February. Instead, Hall of Fame coaches Mike Krzyzewski of Duke and Roy Williams of North Carolina are trying to correct mistakes, find consistency and get through to their young rosters entering Saturday's meeting - the first with both teams unranked in more than six decades.
Each team is 5-4 in ACC play, with Williams' Tar Heels 11-6 overall and Krzyzewski's Blue Devils just 7-6.
"We have some wounds, we're trying to get them healed, and some problems we're trying to get fixed," Williams said Thursday. "I don't want to speak for (the Blue Devils), but I would assume that they have those same kind of things that we do - just trying to get better every day.
"And then all of a sudden, 'Wow, we're getting ready to play Duke,' and we're nowhere near where we want to be. I know that part of it for sure."
AP file photo by Kathy Kmonicek / North Carolina men's basketball coach Roy Williams is enduring a challenging season, with the Tar Heels unranked and barely above .500 in ACC play.Right now, neither team is certain to make the NCAA tournament, part of a larger trend of tradition-rich programs having bumpy seasons amid the coronavirus pandemic. Saturday's game at Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium - minus not just its signature Crazies but any fans - will mark the first meeting since February 1960 with neither team in The AP Top 25.
The struggles are most pronounced for the Blue Devils, who returned only five letter winners from last season while restocking the roster with six freshmen. Sophomore Matthew Hurt has blossomed as a scorer, but Duke otherwise has yet to discover a true identity with any consistency.
The Blue Devils rank 28th nationally in KenPom's adjusted offensive efficiency (112.6 points per 100 possessions) and 49th in defense (94.4) after ranking in the top 12 in both categories in each of the past three season. And after a blowout league win against Clemson, Duke lost at Miami in a performance Krzyzewski labeled afterward as "soft" while saying he needed to do better in reaching his team.
"If you're not getting your message across, it's just not going the way you want it to, it's very frustrating," Krzyzewski said Thursday. "And you've got to be careful that you don't react to your frustration. You'd rather react to how to get your message across. I would say ... at times I react to the frustration. And I've got to be careful about that with this group."
The Tar Heels have a deep frontcourt that has made them one of the nation's best rebounding teams. A young backcourt headlined by freshmen Caleb Love and RJ Davis in lead ball-handling roles has made gains, but there also have been problems with turnovers and shot selection.
North Carolina ranks 266th nationally in KenPom's turnover percentage (21% of possessions), which showed up in Tuesday's loss at Clemson after the Tar Heels had won six of seven games through January. That explains why Williams - who thought his team was ready to play well at Clemson after recent strong practices - has dismissed questions about whether North Carolina had "turned a corner."
These days, the Devils and Heels are just trying to correct enough problems to win a rivalry game, ranked or not.
"It's going to be a time to turn things around, play together, play the right way and just go out there and have fun," Duke freshman guard DJ Steward said. "This is going to be a fun game for us."