UNC-Duke spawns 2 court-stormings, one controversy and Trimble’s legendary shot
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Seth Trimble’s corner three with 0.4 seconds sparked two court storms and controversy.
- UNC rallied from a 68-62 deficit to score the game’s final 9 points in Chapel Hill.
- Court storms trapped Duke staff and family; UNC apologized and fines are expected.
UNC made a comeback so spectacular Saturday night against Duke that it caused a college basketball rarity:
Back-to-back court-storms. Those, as court storms are wont to do, ended in controversy.
The first one came when Seth Trimble etched his name alongside Michael Jordan, Luke Maye, Charlie Scott, Walter Davis, Marvin Williams, Marcus Paige and a few other Tar Heel alums who have hit massive shots in the final seconds of big games that are remembered years or even decades later.
With the score tied at 68-all, in a game that UNC had never led, Trimble launched a corner 3-pointer right in front of UNC’s bench. The ball swished through the net with 0.4 seconds left.
“Good all the way,” Trimble said later. “I knew it as soon as I left my hand.”
When everyone else in the Dean Dome found out what Trimble knew, the place nearly imploded. Students stormed the court in a frenzy, thinking the game was over. It was absolute pandemonium.
It turned out, however, that those pesky 0.4 seconds were left. The PA announcer in Chapel Hill progressively got angrier and angrier, yelling at the students to get off the court “as rapidly as you got on it!” He sounded like a fed-up parent — first trying to gently persuade, then pulling out his mean voice.
Finally, the students did get off the court. No. 4 Duke (21-2 overall, 10-1 ACC) then got to try to throw a full-court inbounds pass but never got a shot off, and No. 14 UNC (19-4, 7-3) had pulled the upset. Following that, the Chapel Hill court storm happened all over again, in a 2.0 version that wasn’t quite as intense as the first one.
Trimble, a rarity in college basketball in that he’s stuck around for four years at the same school, got the ultimate walkoff moment in his final UNC-Duke game at Chapel Hill.
“That shot was made by the perfect person at the right time,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said of Trimble, his first four-year player. “He’s deserving of being remembered forever.”
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And he will be. Not since Luke Maye made a shot with 0.3 seconds left to beat Kentucky in the Elite Eight of the 2017 NCAA championship has UNC made a shot to win that near the buzzer.
“I’ve got to get to Franklin Street!” Trimble yelled as his postgame interview duties ended. By then, as you might imagine, it was already mobbed.
Duke coach Jon Scheyer was gracious in defeat after his team suffered its first loss in the ACC this season. But Scheyer was understandably unhappy about the fact his players and staff were stuck on the court during the court storms, and the aftermath of that frenzy will undoubtedly get UNC fined and bring about a fair amount of consternation for a few days.
As Scheyer said: “I got staff members that got punched in the face. My family (was) pushing people away trying to not get trampled. That’s not what this game is about. You give them (UNC) all the credit in the world…. But obviously, that was a scary ending.”
In a postgame rarity, UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham later came into the media press room to address journalists. Cunningham said he was sorry about the way the court-storming trapped the Duke players and staff on the court and that video would be examined to see exactly what happened.
“I apologize,” Cunningham said, several times. “I apologize to Coach Scheyer and his family. And obviously if somebody got injured, that’s really very disappointing.”
The people who were punched were Duke staff members, but it wasn’t immediately apparent who they were nor the extent of any injury.
As for the game itself, as Scheyer said, “We were in control.”
The Blue Devils bedeviled UNC for the game’s first 38 minutes, jumping out to an early 18-5 lead and leading 41-29 at halftime. With 2:51 to go, Duke still led, 68-62. At that juncture, ESPN had Duke’s chance of winning the game at 86.9%.
But Duke would never score again. Cameron Boozer (24 points, 11 rebounds) was superb almost the entire night, but he missed two driving, contested layups on Duke’s final two possessions (before the 0.4-second desperation play in which a shot was never attempted). Before Boozer’s last miss, with the score tied at 68-68, the video screens flashed to former UNC head coach Roy Williams. He stood up, gripped his fists together and then screamed, imitating one of his famous sideline poses when the Tar Heels needed a stop. That, of course, worked the crowd into another frenzy, and shortly afterward, Boozer got into the lane but missed. UNC called timeout with 10.6 seconds left to set up the final play.
To even get to 68-all, UNC had gotten huge 3-pointers from Derek Dixon and Henri Veesaar (who was terrible in the first half and terrific in the second) on consecutive possessions. For much of the game, freshman Caleb Wilson had carried the Tar Heels — he scored 17 of the team’s 29 first-half points. But at the end, with Duke trying hard to deny Wilson, UNC got three huge three-pointers from three other players.
After Boozer’s final miss, UNC’s last play didn’t go as planned. The idea was for Veesaar or Wilson (a team-high 23 points) to take the final shot. But Dixon found a lane, drove to the basket, drew multiple defenders and kicked the ball out to the right corner to a wide-open Trimble.
“Truthfully,” Trimble said, “you have to have some big (guts) to shoot a shot like that.”
It’s one thing to shoot it.
It’s another to make it.
Trimble did both, getting the legendary ending he had always wanted in the latest chapter of the rivalry that always delivers.
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This story was originally published February 7, 2026 at 10:31 PM.
