DURHAM, N.C. – Paolo Banchero and Mark Williams have left Duke behind to begin their careers in the NBA this season.

But as the current Blue Devils happily exchanged high 5s with the Cameron Crazies on the way to the locker room following their 63-57 win against rival North Carolina on Saturday, the 2 former stars were right there celebrating with them.

“One hundred percent it gives me closure,” Banchero, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 draft, said later.

It’s been 10 months since the Tar Heels came to Cameron Indoor Stadium and spoiled Mike Krzyzewski’s overly-hyped retirement party, then doubled down on the heartbreak by ending the Hall of Fame coach’s career at the Final 4.

If Saturday’s emotional victory in the 1st rematch between the rivals since New Orleans provided a sense of closure to a former player watching from the stands, imagine what it meant to the only remaining Blue Devil to have seen action in each of those 2 previous losses.

For Jeremy Roach, who said earlier in the week that the Final 4 disappointment was “still sitting sick” in his stomach, it was like a huge, soothing swig of Pepto Bismol.

“It kind of eases that a little bit,” said the junior guard, who was on the floor for all 40 minutes Saturday. 

The fact that, in a stroke of poetic justice, he was the one to clinch the victory by scoring the game’s final 4 points on a driving layup and a pair of free throws made the outcome all the more sweet.

“I wanted (the ball) to be in my hands,” Roach said. “I wanted that moment.”

While Roach got exactly what he wanted, along with leading all scorers in the game with 20 points, he was far from the most impactful player on the court for the Blue Devils.

Though you’d never know it from his modest scoring line – 2-for-3 from the floor for only 4 points – Dereck Lively II did more to affect the outcome than any other player on either team.

One of those baskets was a putback dunk of a Roach miss that gave Duke a 59-57 lead with 1:35 remaining. His most meaningful contributions, however, came on the other end of the court.

The freshman big man blocked 8 shots, the most ever in a Duke-UNC rivalry game, and altered a countless number of others. He added 14 rebounds and held the Tar Heels’ leading scorer Armando Bacot to just 2 points in the second half in a performance his coach Jon Scheyer said “changed the game.”

“Usually bigs are so hungry to score,” Scheyer said. “That’s not necessarily the most efficient or best play for him. He’s all about the team. He’s all about winning. The impact that he has on defense, beside the blocked shots, speaks to the versatility he has.”

Lively is a 7-foot-1 center who came to Duke as a 5-star recruit and is expected to be another in a long line of 1-and-done Blue Devils. 

But his college career has gotten off to a slower than expected start, due in large part to a calf injury that forced him to miss most of the preseason and the season’s 1st 2 games. 

He’s made steady progress since. But saved his best for the biggest stage – so far at least – with a performance that might just turn out to be his coming out party.

In a way, Lively’s steady growth is symbolic of the progress his young team continues to make.

They’re 17-6 (8-4) in the ACC. Not bad. But not good enough when you’re Duke and you started the season ranked among the nation’s top 10.

With a rookie head coach and 11 of their 13 scholarship players in their 1st year with the program, including 6 highly touted freshmen, the Blue Devils have experienced their share of growing pains through the first 23 games.

But as Krzyzewski used to say, the journey is more important than the destination. And this team still has a long way to go to reach its still lofty ceiling. Even with their rocky start, they’re only 1 game in the loss column out of the ACC lead with another star freshman, Dariq Whitehead, close to returning from injury soon.

“There’s 2 major ways of getting confidence,” Scheyer said. “One is by the preparation you put in. Two is confidence from your experiences and actually doing it. And winning.

“We’ve been right there, we’ve had some close games. We just haven’t been able to get the key stop or the key bucket to go ahead by 2 possessions. Tonight we did. You hate to lose, but you probably learn more from the losses.”

The Blue Devils are clearly learning from their mistakes. In the process, they’re also developing an identity.

Unlike many Duke teams in the past, it’s not an identity based on offense and an up-tempo style of play. It’s a gritty, physical defensive presence that helped limit the Tar Heels – the ACC’s 2nd-highest scoring team coming into the game at 78.6 points per game – to a season-low 57 points and just 34.3% field goal shooting.

“Our team is coming into its own with that being a strong suit,” Scheyer said of the defensive effort. “From the beginning with a young group, you try to find an identity. I would have liked for it to happen from Game 1, but that’s not realistic.”

Now that it has, it’s helped put the Blue Devils on a decidedly upward trajectory as they look ahead to this year’s postseason.

While finally being able to put last year’s in the rear view mirror.