CHAPEL HILL – The second Duke-North Carolina game is Saturday, and unlike the losing skid UNC was on entering the first meeting, the Tar Heels have won three consecutive games and are feeling as good about themselves as they have all season.

Carolina may be 13-17 overall and 6-13 in the ACC, and its chance at making the NCAA Tournament rests in if the Tar Heels can win the ACC Tournament next week in Greensboro, but Roy Williams’ team is going into this meeting ready to continue playing as they have over the last week-plus.

Duke is ranked No. 12 in the nation and stands at 24-6 and 14-5, plus the Blue Devils won the first meeting netting buzzer-beaters to send the game into overtime and then win it in overtime. One might call how the Devils won a fluke or suggest Mike Krzyzewski’s team was lucky, but Williams swats away that notion.

The Blue Devils made plays, and the Tar Heels have to understand the importance of that.

“After the game and the next day, I said, guys, ‘They made plays. We can say they were lucky, you can say all of that you want, but they made plays,’” Williams said, during a pre-Duke press conference Thursday at the Smith Center.

“I think that the play Tre (Jones) made throwing the ball off the rim that direction and getting it to bounce out like that was incredible and it would be hard to assimilate. But you know what? He did, that’s the only thing that matters. Lucky or not lucky, he did it. That’s what I said to our team is that they made plays and we had plenty of opportunities.”

Here are a few more items from Williams’ press conference Thursday:

*Freshman forward Armando Bacot did not play in Tuesday’s win over Wake Forest and his availability for Saturday is uncertain. Bacot sprained an ankle in last weekend’s win at Syracuse playing just nine minutes. He struggled in a win over N.C. State the previous Tuesday and played just 13 minutes.

So, Bacot has played only 22 minutes during the Tar Heels’ three-game win streak. He also played only three minutes in a win at UNC Wilmington after suffering a concussion and seven minutes in a loss to Ohio State in December because of a sprained ankle. He was the only Tar Heel to start every game until earlier this week.

“Yesterday, he continued to get treatment,” Williams said. “Today, I have him listed as ‘limited’ in practice. What that means is we’re not counting on him doing anything full-court but we’ll see how he does in a half-court situation and that’ll depend on whether we move him to complete practice tomorrow.”

*Williams and Krzyzewski don’t spend the offseason making dinner and lunch plans, as breaking bread together just isn’t their thing. Legends and rivals eight miles apart, they aren’t buddy-buddy, but they aren’t personal adversaries. There’s a deep respect for one another and a trust for how each other see the landscape that has afforded them so much.

“Before the game, I say ‘good luck’ and after the game I say ‘congratulations’ and we do it again the second time,” Williams said. “We talk at the conference meetings and, if there’s an issue in college basketball, he and I talk about it a lot because we have that much respect for each other.

“He called me a couple month ago about something that was related to college basketball. If there’s a big issue or something that we’re concerned about, we talk about it because it’s a complete and total respect.”

*Cameron Indoor Stadium is a bandbox in the old sense of the term. Those kids of building don’t exist much in college basketball anymore, aside from a few venues in the northeast, but Cameron pretty much fits the bill, though it does seat 9,341.

It can be awfully warm in there, the students can suffocate the playing floor, and there’s an aura about the building that is very real for most teams that come in, serving almost as a sixth man for the Blue Devils. Carolina, though, isn’t like other teams.

UNC is 37-45 all-time in Cameron and Williams has led teams to seven wins in the hallowed hall. So, what does Williams like about taking his teams up the road to Duke and playing in its famed home building?

“It’s a wonderful atmosphere, it’s what I love about college basketball,” Williams said. “I think it’s the best rivalry there is in college athletics. I’m flattered to be involved in it.

“I love the atmosphere, just the pageantry of the game, I just don’t love the way it ends sometimes or the way we play sometimes.”