Off the cuff: I'm not sure I've seen Duke any more excited to beat Carolina. Nolan Smith said it was almost like winning the national championship.

The Blue Devils defense cut off the passing lanes and Smith seemed to never get tired hawking Carolina point guard Kendall Marshall, who had five turnovers.

Duke was the better team and especially the better three-point shooting team but the officials amateurish effort kept Carolina from making any comeback.

Here are some examples from the last 10 minutes alone. With just over nine minutes left, Kyle Singler barreled into Justin Knox, nothing called. Two seconds later Miles Plumlee lost the handle on a shot but UNC's John Henson was called for a foul. If you have the game on tape, I urge you to try to find the Henson foul.

Carolina had a chance to cut the deficit down to 10 points but Duke defender Miles Plumlee, two feet from the basket mind you, moved into - that's moving forward into - a driving Justin Watts and Watts was called for a charge.

With less than five minutes to play, Nolan Smith used an arm to get Zeller off of him. The foul was called on Zeller and Smith hit two free throws.

With less than four minutes to play, Duke's Seth Curry reached in on a driving Leslie McDonald to tip the ball. McDonald managed to keep control but officials, obviously not having seen the Curry tip, called McDonald with double dribbling.

The officials also dampened Carolina's spirits in the first half when they waved off a Dexter Strickland dunk, calling him for a charge. That call was wrong on so many levels. First, Singler was too close to the basket to draw a charge. Second, Strickland actually went to the left of Singler and hardly even touched him. It certainly wasn't enough contact for a charge. The basket would have cut the Duke lead to five. Instead, the game never got closer.

TV announcers also amuse me. Zeller had the ball stripped from him by Curry and his shooting motion takes him naturally into Singler, who on the other hand purposely throws Zeller to the ground. Officials reviewed it and say there are not fouls. Fine, I guess. But Tim Brant and Mike Gminski both agreed that officials did the right thing and "let 'em play." Yet seconds later, UNC's McDonald ran alongside Nolan Smith, who are barely even touching each other. The officials call McDonald with a foul. Do the announcers say, "ah, let 'em play?" No. They just say, "That's a foul on McDonald." Oh, was it? Earlier, when Strickland dunked over Singler, only to be called for that phantom charge, we didn't hear the announcers say, "let 'em play."