The Duke Blue Devils come off a loss to Miami and are on the outside of the Bracketology bubble looking in. The North Carolina Tar Heels come off a loss to Clemson, and though in seemingly better NCAA shape, sit several spots behind Duke in the key metric rankings systems including KenPom. Saturday's matchup between Duke and UNC (6 p.m. ET, ESPN) is not your typical battle of championship heavyweights -- this one is for far more than status on Tobacco Road. With that in mind, ESPN.com's panel of college hoops writers sized up this week's battle, some other key matchups on the Saturday slate and the topic of conference tournaments that hangs over the game's collective head like an anvil:
Should Duke or North Carolina feel more desperate? Can Alabama keep rolling?
