Saturday night did not go as planned for the UNC basketball program.

Facing a must-win game against rival Duke, the Tar Heels lost in a very similar fashion as to the first meeting in February. The Tar Heels had a one-point lead late but failed to execute in the final three minutes, watched Duke get a key layup and a run out dunk to seal it.

The loss forces UNC to win the 2023 ACC Tournament next week to avoid becoming the first preseason No. 1 team to miss the NCAA Tournament.

It’s been a disappointing season for the Tar Heels as the struggles have mounted. Those struggles mainly come on the offensive end of the court. UNC is one of the worst shooting teams from the 3-point line. That happened again on Saturday night. UNC couldn’t get anything going when it needed.

Before we look ahead at the challenge in Greensboro, here’s what head coach Hubert Davis said after the game.

On UNC's chances in Greensboro

On the opportunities his team had

On set play out of timeout with 47 seconds left

“Well, we called a play that gave us two looks to attack the basket and two looks on both sides to get a 3. You have to compliment them, they defended it really well. We just didn’t get a clean look off of that shot.”

On players second guessing from 3?

“I don’t know about that. I thought we had wide-open looks from 3 that we didn’t make, but more importantly, I thought we had layups that we missed. We missed a lot of shots around the basket. I mean, the first half Pete (Nance) missed a layup. Caleb (Love) missed a dunk, and we only got one point from it. Armando missed a layup. I just felt like we we had opportunities around the rim to be able to convert, and we just weren’t able to do it.”

On the Jeremy Roach layup at the end

“Yeah, we did. We had two guys in the lane. So we had guys right there in front of the basket. And again, that’s where it comes down to that you have to make a play. We were there and Roach made a really good move to get around two defenders and be able to score. 

“And we had a one-point lead and I think (Kyle) Filipowski got fouled, hit the two free throws. So one of the things that he does really well is draw fouls and he’s really good at getting offensive rebounds off of his own shot and so that puts him on the free-throw line. So again, you’ve got to make plays. And they made a couple more towards the end of the game that allowed them to win.”

Story originally appeared on Tarheels Wire