{"id":455790,"date":"2026-02-08T05:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T05:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/455790\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T05:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T05:26:12","slug":"seth-trimbles-last-second-3-pointer-caps-uncs-largest-comeback-win-vs-duke-in-past-25-years-inspiring-2-court-storms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/455790\/","title":{"rendered":"Seth Trimble’s last-second 3-pointer caps UNC’s largest comeback win vs. Duke in past 25 years, inspiring 2 court storms"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the game tied and less than a minute to go Saturday night in the Dean Smith Center, Duke forward Cameron Boozer knocked the ball loose from a driving Seth Trimble.<\/p>\n

Boozer didn’t take advantage and missed a layup.<\/p>\n

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And Trimble, a senior North Carolina captain who broke a bone in his left forearm during a weight room accident earlier this season<\/a>, got one more chance for a defining moment in a historic regional matchup that had been split evenly over its past 120 iterations.<\/p>\n

The guard swished a go-ahead, last-second 3-pointer that caused bedlam.<\/p>\n

Fans stormed the court, only to find out there were actually 0.4 seconds remaining in the game.<\/p>\n

All of them had to return to their seats, and equipment staff anxiously cleared the hardwood of debris \u2014 except the Blue Devils’ last-second inbound heave didn’t change the 71-68 outcome, the largest comeback win for UNC over Duke in the last 25 years.<\/p>\n

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The No. 14 Tar Heels (19-4, 7-3 ACC) trailed by as many as 13 points, and their faithful celebrated the come-from-behind victory again after the buzzer sounded a second time.<\/p>\n

Jon Scheyer said afterward that Duke staff members were punched in the face during the game-ending frenzy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A motivated Caleb Wilson, who revealed to Andscape in the lead-up to the rivalry showdown<\/a> that Duke stopped talking to him in the highly touted forward’s recruitment, logged 17 of UNC’s 29 first-half points and finished with 23. Boozer, another top-five NBA Draft prospect, totaled 24 points and 11 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Trimble, the hero who gave the Tar Heels their first lead of the night with less than a second left, collected 16 points.<\/p>\n

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No. 4 Duke was in the driver’s seat for most of the game.<\/p>\n

It sliced through UNC’s defense with well-timed cuts in the opening minutes. One of those helped fuel a 10-0 Blue Devils run that staked them to an 18-5 lead, as center Patrick Ngongba II whipped a pass to wing Dame Sarr, who then dunked.<\/p>\n

Wilson didn’t get many touches early, and he didn’t score until the 13:18 mark in the first half. But his drought-ending turnaround jumper set up a pretty up-and-under that gave the Tar Heels a shot in the arm.<\/p>\n

UNC doubled Boozer early and often. His first points, and shot, came on a tip-in close to 8:30 into the game.<\/p>\n

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After Wilson scored eight straight points for the Tar Heels, wing Jonathan Powell drilled a 3-pointer to pull his team back within six points of the Blue Devils, making it a 22-16 game.<\/p>\n

Wilson tacked on another UNC triple, and, following two quick fouls, Boozer took a seat on the bench with 9:33 left before intermission and the Tar Heels building what would be a 9-0 surge.<\/p>\n

He sat for less than two minutes, though, and Duke held onto its lead down the stretch of the first half, even restoring a double-digit advantage, first with a 3 from Boozer and then with another from his twin brother, Cayden Boozer.<\/p>\n

Having shot a mere 9 of 27, or 33%, from the floor and accounting for just 11 of the game’s 33 rebounds across the first 20 minutes of action, UNC found itself down 41-29 at the break. Center Henri Veesaar came in averaging 16.8 points and nine rebounds per game yet went scoreless with two rebounds in the first half.<\/p>\n

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To start the second half, Wilson picked up where he left off, knocking down a tough jumper over Cameron Boozer, whom Wilson notably swatted for a highlight-reel block in the first half<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then Wilson used a jab step to set the stage for a left-handed layup. While his clinic continued, so did Duke’s lead, as Caleb Foster and, later, Sarr poured in 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

But Veesaar’s first points, followed by Jarin Stevenson’s second 3-pointer of the second half, decreased the Tar Heels’ deficit to five. That sequence jumpstarted a flurry of offense on both ends.<\/p>\n

UNC and Duke traded buckets up until the half’s second media timeout, with the Tar Heels’ effort level noticeably higher than it was at the beginning of the game.<\/p>\n

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The scoring slowed in the subsequent minutes. Isaiah Evans blocked Wilson, and Boozer netted his second triple, putting the Blue Devils up 62-53.<\/p>\n

UNC didn’t go away. Derek Dixon sank a 3 that ignited the arena.<\/p>\n

He made one more less than four minutes later, and Veesaar followed to tie the game at 68.<\/p>\n

Veesaar bounced back from a quiet first half with 13 second-half points and the defense that shut down Boozer on his potential game-winning drive.<\/p>\n

Then Trimble etched his name in UNC lore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the game tied and less than a minute to go Saturday night in the Dean Smith Center,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[105150,80475,4,450,62693,50262,56183,213079,2843,451,85987,50263,3,147724,36312,452,453,6928,213078],"class_list":["post-455790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-blue-devils","tag-boozer","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-caleb-wilson","tag-cameron-boozer","tag-cayden-boozer","tag-dean-smith-center","tag-duke","tag-headlines","tag-henri-veesaar","tag-isaiah-evans","tag-news","tag-seth-trimble","tag-tar-heels","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-unc","tag-unc-and-duke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}