Tar Heels Win Fourth Straight ACC Tournament
No. 2 North Carolina 86, No. 12 Duke 73
North Carolina players Heather Claytor, left, Iman McFarland, and Rashanda McCants react after beating Duke in the women's ACC tournament championship game.
(Chuck Burton - AP)
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GREENSBORO, N.C. -- For the second straight day, North Carolina celebrated an Atlantic Coast Conference championship at the expense of its biggest rival.
Erlana Larkins and Cetera DeGraffenreid each scored 17 points Sunday to help the second-ranked Tar Heels beat No. 12 Duke 86-73 in the tournament championship, giving North Carolina its fourth straight title while almost certainly locking up a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Rashanda McCants and LaToya Pringle each added 16 points for the top-seeded Tar Heels (30-2), who became the first to win nine ACC tournament titles.
The victory came one night after the North Carolina men's team beat Duke 76-68 at Cameron Indoor Stadium to claim the league's regular-season crown, and gave the women's team a three-game sweep of the Blue Devils (23-9) while completing an unbeaten run through the league.
Larkins, the tournament MVP, went 5-for-9 from the floor and 7-for-10 from the line to go with eight rebounds.
Chante Black and Jasmine Thomas each had 16 points for third-seeded Duke, which was playing in its first championship game since an 88-67 loss to the Tar Heels in 2005.
North Carolina had beaten Duke easily this season, winning 93-76 on the road before taking an 82-51 win in the regular-season finale to secure the school's first unbeaten ACC regular-season record and give Duke its worst loss in 15 years.
The Blue Devils certainly looked like a dispirited bunch when they trailed Florida State by six midway through the second half of Friday's quarterfinals, but Abby Waner led a 30-9 run that put the Blue Devils in the semifinals, where they followed up with their biggest win of the season by upsetting fifth-ranked Maryland.
Still, while Duke showed much more fight than before, the Tar Heels led almost the entire way for their eighth win in 10 meetings against the Blue Devils.
North Carolina shot just 39 percent, but finished with 26 second-chance points and 20 offensive rebounds.
The Tar Heels took their biggest lead at 72-55 on DeGraffenreid's 3-pointer with about 71/2 minutes left. Duke got no closer than eight points in the final minutes.
