Jeremy Roach scored 20 points, slashing and crashing his way to the bucket to positive results for the Duke Blue Devils, who outlasted North Carolina at home on Saturday 63-57 to move a full game ahead of the Tar Heels in the ACC standings and give first-year coach Jon Scheyer a debut win in the greatest rivalry in sports.

Roach was one of three Blue Devils who scored in double-figures for Duke, which moves to 17-6 on the season and 8-4 in ACC play with the victory. North Carolina sits at 15-8 on the year, 7-5 in ACC play.

Here are 3 takeaways from the game.

Dereck Lively II

There was not a more impactful player on the court Saturday night than Dereck Lively II. The 7-foot-1 freshman was a menace, a game wrecker, a tower of terror underneath Duke’s basket.

The Philly native took 3 shots. He scored 4 points. And yet he was the game’s MVP. Lively completely altered Carolina’s attack, blocking 8 (EIGHT!!) shots, pulling down 14 rebounds, and swallowing Carolina star Armando Bacot in the second half.

Bacot had 12 points and 7 boards in the first half. He made 5 of his 8 shots from the field. When the Tar Heels were able to get the ball inside to him, good things happened. Lively hustled to keep Bacot from establishing position in the second half, beating him down the floor several times to deny. He bodied Bacot up and limited him to 4 shots, 3 of them misses. Bacot had 2 second-half points and 3 rebounds.

It was a terrific performance. Surely his best game of the year. The punctuation came with 1:30 to play as Jeremy Roach drove, pulling Bacot away from Lively on the other side of the rim in order to hunt the block.

Roach threw it off the glass. Lively slammed it home.

A dud at the wrong time

With 30 seconds to play and Carolina trailing by 4, UNC was able to swing a pass to an open and capable 3-point shooter. Pete Nance missed.

It was one of several open misses from Nance on the evening in what was a tough outing for the former Northwestern man. He was outplayed, plain and simple. Nance went 1-for-10 from the field and 0-for-5 from the 3-point line. He had 2 turnovers and didn’t record an assist. He was out-rebounded by Duke’s Kyle Filipowski 7-5.

Leaky Black hit a trio of triples in the second half that helped keep Carolina in the game. He had the only baskets from the field for the Tar Heels during the first 6:39 of the second half as Duke tried to stretch its lead. Carolina needed each of his 13 points.

RJ Davis finished with 11, 5 boards, and 5 assists. A bit of foul trouble in the first half threw him out of rhythm, but his drive-and-kick game in the second half was important offense for the Tar Heels.

Bacot finished with 14 points and 10 boards, another double-double for the program’s record-holder.

Carolina needed stronger minutes from Nance. It was outscored by 10 when he was on the floor.

Physicality you’d expect from this kind of game

It was a black-and-blue kind of game. Take it inside and you’ll get beat up. Carolina tried and failed. One thing that stands out in the box score is a pretty wide disparity at the free throw line.

Duke attempted 15 foul shots, making 11 of them.

Carolina attempted 3, making 2.

That’s not to suggest anything untoward happened. We can leave such a suggestion for UNC coach Hubert Davis. But it is certainly notable that in a game where both teams really took it at each other down low, there were few whistles for the Tar Heels.

And UNC needed some easy buckets late when the offense dried up. The Blue Devils ended on a 6-0 scoring run as North Carolina went the final 3:57 of game clock without a point. The Tar Heels missed each of their final 5 shots and 8 of their final 9.