Out-duking The Devils

Doherty is so active during games that he removes his sport coat in the opening minute and begins pacing the sideline, stomping to get his players' attention because he doesn't know how to whistle. " Doherty has brought a buzz, a new energy that they didn't have last year," Duke's Jason Williams said the day before the game against the Tar Heels. "You feed off a guy like him more than you do a guy sitting there with his chin in his hand."

With North Carolina ahead by seven points at halftime of a 91-60 win over 2-7 Massachusetts on Dec. 29, Doherty threw a chair across the locker room to convey his displeasure with the Tar Heels' effort. He wept on the court during a postgame celebration after a dramatic 70-69 win over Wake Forest on Jan. 6, but his appreciation for victories is short-lived. During a phone call after an 88-81 win over Virginia, in which Doherty was critical of himself, Smith implored him to enjoy his wins more. "It fires you up to see how much Coach Doherty cares," Haywood says. "One day he was helping me with my free throw shooting, and he missed three in a row and he got really mad at himself. He wants us to be that angry when we fail." Doherty, meanwhile, puts so much time into his job that when he was asked last week what has surprised him most about his debut season at North Carolina, he said, "That my wife hasn't left me."

He also makes it clear that these aren't the same Tar Heels who began the season 3-2, including a humiliating 93-76 home loss to Kentucky on Dec. 2 after which Doherty apologized to the Carolina Nation. His orders to play tougher took root soon after when the Heels plugged two football players into their rotation, quarterback Ronald Curry and defensive end Julius Peppers. When freshman point guard Adam Boone proved unready to succeed the graduated Ed Cota, North Carolina's career assist leader, Curry stepped in at the point, and his tenacious defense provides a crucial contrast to that of Cota, who as a defender gave new meaning to the nickname Tar Heel.

The 6'6", 270-pound Peppers has reprised his role from last year's Final Four run, providing some inspiring dunks and the land of intimidating presence in the lane that one might expect from a guy who led the nation with 15 sacks last fall. Anchored by the 7-foot Haywood, North Carolina's all-time blocked shots leader, the Tar Heels ranked first in the ACC through Sunday in field-goal-percentage defense at 37.9% and hadn't allowed an opponent to shoot 50% in their last 16 games. "Julius and I have added a certain grit, especially on defense," Curry says. "We get more stops now, and that takes some pressure off our scorers."

Forte, a sophomore, is Carolina's offensive catalyst. After shooting a combined 13 for 38 in consecutive early-season losses to Michigan State and Kentucky, he has averaged more than 21 points. In a stretch of four consecutive tight games, concluding with the one at Duke, Forte demanded the ball in the final minutes, a cockiness he picked up from watching one of his favorite videos, Michael Jordan's Air Time. "I try to emulate the way Jordan took over a game at showtime," Forte says. "I feel I'm the best player in America, and Coach Doherty has helped provoke me to prove it."

Part of the reason Guthridge stepped down after last season was the withering criticism he endured for losing his last five games against Duke—North Carolina's longest winless streak in the series in nearly four decades. To understand how the rivalry acts as a litmus test, Doherty needs only to think back to his days as a Tar Heels player, when the Blue Devils' Mike Krzyzewski was a fledgling coach trying to establish himself against Smith. Doherty says he began thinking about facing Duke the night he took the Tar Heels' job, and a few days later, when he left for a family vacation, he packed two game tapes, North Carolina's two matchups last season with the Blue Devils. "Right now Duke is seen as the measuring stick in the ACC, and we want to become the measuring stick again," Doherty says. "I'm a better coach because the Blue Devils are right down the road."

Three days before the game in Durham, Doherty sat down for an hour with Smith to talk X's and O's. At practice the day before the game, he handed out copies of a permit obtained by Duke students to build a bonfire on campus after the presumed win over the Tar Heels. For support on game night, he had his 73-year-old father, Walter, sitting at the end of the bench. After North Carolina led most of the game, thanks to Forte's 24 points and 16 rebounds, the Blue Devils tied the score at 83-83 on Mike Dunleavy's three-pointer with 3-9 seconds remaining. Then the Tar Heels got the kind of debatable foul call that a visiting coach, especially one with Doherty's scant credentials, isn't supposed to get at Coach K Court. Duke senior All-America Shane Battier was whistled for bumping Haywood with 1.2 seconds left as Haywood caught a pass 20 feet from the Tar Heels' basket. Haywood, a 48.6% free throw shooter who practiced his stroke for 90 minutes on Christmas Day, swished two for the winning margin. "I hated to put a damper on Duke's bonfire," Haywood said. "We heard Battier say that he'd never been in second place in the ACC in his life. Well, it's time to experience new things."

After the victory, a fan asked the North Carolina coach to autograph a homemade sign that read, WELCOME TO THE DOHERTY ERA! Eleven miles away, Guthridge took a celebratory walk with his new puppy. Smith scribbled down some game notes on a pad and left a proud phone message at the Dohertys' house. Still sweating profusely from the mosh pit, Doherty exited Cameron and grinned when he was told that Carolina students were lighting bonfires in Chapel Hill. As he prepared to board the bus for the too-short ride home, Doherty paused to hug his dad, and both men teared up. The son looked at the father and said, "This doesn't suck, huh?"