Of course it helps to not face a seed higher than seven.

I’m going to make this post-game a little quick. I want to turn my attention to the NCAA Tournament, where I’ll have posts almost every day this week.

SO WHAT DID I SEE TODAY?

WHO NEEDS BASKETS?
Six shots. That’s all Duke made in the second half (18 for the game). Yet they never surrendered the lead the Yellow Jackets. How is that possible? Free throws, baby. Duke dominated on the line. For the game they were 24-28 from the charity stripe. Most importantly, they made their final 21 free throws. Amazing. Just think, if they shot 75% in those final 21 attempts, Duke probably loses this game.

THE BIG TWO CAN’T SHOOT
While Nolan Smith continued to roll (when he wasn’t sitting on the pine again with two fouls). He finished with 16 on 7-13 shooting. Singler and Scheyer though, not good. The pair combined for 7-28 from the field, 2-11 from three.

For Scheyer, it’s been a brutal three-game stretch. He was 13-41 from the field (32%) and his three-point average has fallen below 40% for the season. This is not a good time to find yourself in a slump.

In the end though both Scheyer and Singler made up for the misses. Singler did his damage on the free throw line. He was 13-13 in the second half. Scheyer of course, with Ga Tech on a nine-point run, down one with 18 seconds left, nailed a huge 3 that sealed the game for the Devils.

WHERE’S THE INSIDE SCORING?
I know we’re the big three and all, but no shots inside the paint for Zoubek and Thomas? None. Not once did the twosome receive a pass inside and try to make a move and make a basket. Zoubek sort of took one shot with a minute to go when he found himself alone under the basket. Of course instead of just going up for a dunk, he goofed off and was fouled. Luckily, he made them both.

DAWKINS HAS A MOMENT
If any one player deserves a moment. it’s Andre. Heading into the conference final, Dawkins had failed to hit a shot, but in a two-minute span, he hit three baskets, two three’s and one amazing drive and dunk through the heart of the Jackets’ D. It was a great moment for a kid who’s had to work so hard this season.

That’s really all I got for now. I have a lot more to say, but I’m going to wait until I talk about the NCAA Tournament. Congratulations Blue Devils on another ACC Tournament. It certainly wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, every team gave Duke a contest to the very end, even though their seeding told us otherwise.

Six more wins!

Some upsets, that’s what happened. Three of the four lower seeds advanced to the quarterfinals. Of course, we warned you yesterday that something like this would happen. Not that I need to remind you, but since the league switched to 11 and 12 seeds, the bottom seeds have performed better than the higher seeds in the opening day.

With seeds #9-12 going 3-1 tonight, the lower seeds are now 13-10 against seeds #5-12.

No 9 VIRGINIA OVER No 8 BOSTON COLLEGE, 68-62
This is the one I missed and I still don’t understand it. Seriously, who saw the Cavaliers ending their nine-game slide tonight, without their best player, Sylven Landesberg?

The fact is, the Cavs returned to slow-mo ball, frustrating Boston College, while running a perfectly balanced offense. Sammy Zegliniski led the way with 21, but five Cavaliers scored in double figures.

For the Eagles, Joe Trapani picked a nice night to go cold. Did I say cold? I meant frozen. The “Ice Man” was 0-7 from the floor. Of course the turning point in the game was late in the first half. Up six, B.C. scored a total of four points in the finals 10 minutes of the half, allowing TIna Fey’s alma mater to turn a six-point deficit into a nine-point lead.

That’s it for Boston College…season is over. Time to go watch some re-runs of Doug Flutie’s hail mary. (more…)

That’s right, folks. I got ‘em, you want ‘em. Actually what I have is a pair of tickets for the ACC Championship game, this Sunday. The seats are located in the 200 section. The deal is, I wanted to go, I was planning to go, but a family event has come up and I won’t be able to leave town to attend. This has left me with a pair of Finals tickets. 

And I’m going to give them away, today, to you, the loyal reader. Actually, I don’t care if you’re that loyal. Here is how it works…

I’m going to ask three question about myself/this blog. All three answers can be found on this site…somewhere. If you’re a long-time reader (all six of you) or you just know how to use the “Search” tool, you should be able to answer all the questions easily. 

The FIRST person to answer the three questions in the comment section correctly, wins the tickets. I will mail them out ASAP. Be sure to post your email in the comments, so I can contact you if you win.

Please, please, please…if you don’t/can’t go, please don’t answer the questions…only serious people who can get to the arena should try.

Alright, good luck. The questions are…

1) Last year I attended a game courtside. During that game I shot from my seat and later posted fantastic video of Gerald Henderson dunking the basketball.  Who was Duke playing in that game? Hint: MSG, but not SJU.

2) Wich team did I have ranked No 1 in my week one Ballsy ACC Rankings?

3) Last off-season I was concerned about Duke going after John Wall. At the time I thought he would clearly end up with Calipari (who was still at Memphis). At the time, I suggested Duke should try to get another incoming guard, a young kid out of Alabama. Who was this kid?

Over the last eight games (except for the UNC game), Duke’s experience has handed them big wins. In each game, the Devils played neck-and-neck for thirty minutes, only to pull away in the final ten.

RANDOM RANTS

- How about this stat…Duke shot 40% (9-22) from behind the three, and only 33% (11-33) from inside the arc.

- Is the Elliot Williams experience over? Yes, I’m being a litte quick to the trigger. However, with Maryland’s D collapsing into the paint, Duke benched the gun-shy Elliot, inserting Nolan Smith, who played 30 minutes to Elliot’s 15. While neither got hot (Smith 3-8, Williams 1-4), Maryland respected Smith’s shot more and were forced to actually guard him. Look for Elliot to keep starting for the remainder of the season, but if he can’t step up, Nolan will get the majority of the minutes.

- While Henderson struggled again from the floor (3-14 today, 5-12 yesterday), Scheyer stepped up again big time, leading all scorers with 22. Think about how good he was. Singler and Henderson went a combined 6-26 today, yet Duke still beat Maryland.

- Is Duke the Vasquez killer? Three times Duke has shut down the solid Terps guard. For the season, Vasquez is 13-38 from the floor (1-7 from three), only 11 assists to 10 turnovers.

- Not sure about the refs in this game. For whatever reason, they decided to swallow their whistles, letting a lot of things slide (on both sides). With under three to play, neither team was in the bonus yet. In fact, prior to when Maryland just started to foul on purpose at the 1:30 mark, the two teams had taken a combined 19 free throws (Duke 10, Maryland 9).

- Could the game be any more even? The two teams each pulled down 28 rebounds, 11 asssists, and four blocks. However, for the second straight game, Duke fumbled defensive rebounds out of bounds. This explains why Maryland got eight more shots than Duke.

- David McClure had a scoring outbreak. He tripled his scoring output against Maryland. Of course he averages less than two a game, but today he produced six points, including four in a row midway through the second half.

- STAT OF THE DAY: Kyle Singler grabbed 11 boards, including an incredible eight offensive rebounds.

NEXT UP: The ACC Finals against Florida State. Duke will try to go 3-0 against a second straight team, but the Seminoles won’t be easy. They match up better against Duke than Maryland does. Duke may have two wins against FSU, but both games were tight.

Game One: It was a defensive fight (to say the least). Duke lead 19-14 at the half, before a second half spurt that gave Duke a 25-point lead with under 13 to play. The Seminoles chipped away, but in reality the game never got close (within six with seconds to go).

Game Two: The Seminoles jumped early and led the way against Duke on Senior Night, taking an 8-point late in the first half. Duke would rally in half number two, pulling out a late three-point win to complete the sweep of the Seminoles.

We’ll give the Seminoles their due, but let’s be honest, if Ty Lawson is playing, it’s not a contest. Remember what we said early in our All-ACC Everything post…Carolina is a championship with Lawson, but only a good team without him. He’s the difference maker. However, Tony Douglas is making us look like jackasses for sticking him on the second-team, not the first team in our All-ACC teams.

Not all Florida State fans appear to be happy about the Seminoles victory over the #1 Tar Heels.

You have to hand it to Boston College, they struggled at times, but they never gave up. Despite the early shooting woes (two points in the first nine minutes of the game), they rallied to take a five-point lead at the half. When Duke got hot in the second half and took a eight-point lead, they rallied again with a 7-0 run. However, in the end, I believe it was over-coaching that did them in. Think about it, they grabbed the Scheyer miss free throw with fourteen clicks on the clock and what do they do? They call a timeout. Why though? You have one of the best (and fastest) guards in the nation, let him hurry the ball up while a frustrated Duke team is running back and let Rice do his thing. I don’t have a stat to prove it, but I could swear more game winners come not after a timeout, but a play that happens in the natural flow of the game.

Then coming out of the timeout, they get the ball pass half court and call yet another timeout. So obviously they have a plan, right? If they did, it didn’t involve getting the ball into the hands of their best player. On that last play, Rice came off ONE screen that took him completely to the other side of the court, away from the inbound pass. I’m sorry, but when Duke had J.J., there was no way any other player was going to take the last second shot. Coach K would have had him run through multiple screens. Anyhow, let’s move on.

RANDOM RANTS

- Why did this game come down to the wire? Two reasons; first – Missed free throws. Duke missed nine free throws, six in the second half. Gerald Henderson missed five for the game and four in the second half. In fact, he missed three in one trip down the floor. Worse yet, John Scheyer missing the front end of the one-and-one with under a minute to go…wow.

- Free throw shooting was bad, but it was second chance points that nearly did in the Devils. Duke gave up 15 offensive rebounds. I know what you’re saying; Duke had 13 offensive rebounds. That’s true, but you have to look deeper. At least a half-dozen times, Duke had a defensive rebound in their hands, but let the ball bounce out of bounds, giving BC another shot. That’s how Boston College manage to take 13 more shots than Duke for the game, despite the fact the teams were even in free throws (20) and turnovers (8).

- Despite all that went wrong, was there any question who was going to take Duke’s last shot, down one with under a minute to go? And was there any doubt he was going to make it? Coach K called a beautiful play coming out of the timout, swinging Gerald into a post position. I still can’t believe BC didn’t double down. His wrap around the defender was too easy.

- Singler did his best ‘Hansbrough against Va Tech’ performance, literally putting the team on his shoulders as Gerald sat in the first half in foul trouble. He finished with 26 points, 9 boards and shockingly 6 blocks. He came into the game with only 26 blocks. The advantage that Duke has is that they have two solid NBA ready players. If one is off his game, the other has stepped up. In fact, over the last month, one has produced in one half, while the other produced in the second half.
(more…)

Anyone who has been paying attention to Duke basketball the last 6+ years already knows the theory; Duke players don’t have the legs in March to get deep into the tournament. If that theory is true, then why would Duke want to play three straight games for some pointless ACC Tournament Championship title?

It mattered way back in the day when winning the ACC tournament meant getting into the NCAA tournament (how insane was that? Seriously. You could go undefeated in the regular season, lose in the conference tournament, and not get into the NCAA tournament!). Anyhow, times have changed and winning the regular season title, now that’s something.

Of course tournament seeding can be decided by conference tournament results; go deep in your tournament, get a higher seed in the field of 64. In reality though, how much of a difference are we talking about? If Duke wins this thing (or even just makes it to the ACC championship game), the best they’ll get is a #2 seed. If they lose on Friday, will they really fall below a 3rd seed? There’s no difference.

Also, if history has taught us anything, it’s that winning the ACC tournament title means nothing if winning a championship is what really matters. Sure when Duke won their three titles, they won the ACC tournament in two of them, but they also won the regular season title as well (in fact, they won the regular season title for all three title years). However, three times in the last six years, Duke has won the tournament championship, but not the regular season championship, and in all three cases, Duke was bounced in the Sweet 16. The last time the Blue Devils made it to the Final Four after winning only the tournament championship, it was 1987-88.

The more obvious argument is about confidence. Despite a defeat to UNC this past weekend, this Duke team appears to be a confident bunch since the lineup change. For a team that hasn’t survived the first weekend of the tournament the past two seasons, we can’t under estimate the importance of confidence. However, after a long, tough season, would a loss to (let’s say) Boston College on Friday really be the crushing blow to the team’s psyche? If so, this team is not as mentality as tough as I thought they are.

The key to the tournament is freshness. As the season has come to a close, Coach K has slowly shortened his bench. Players like Henderson, Singler, Scheyer and even Elliot Williams have logged 35+ minutes per game. How fresh are they and what impact would a three-day, three-game tournament have on them? Even worse, Duke’s first game in the ACC tournament is the last game on Friday, 9:30PM. The next game will start less than 16 hours later on Saturday at 3:30. Assuming we win that, the title game is only 19 hours away. Again I ask, how important is this thing? Having an ACC tournament title would be nice, but come on, we want the whole f-ing thing. You want to know how to tear out North Carolina’s heart? Steal their pre-ordained NCAA title from them.

Listen, come Friday I’ll be on my couch. I’ll be rooting, yelling and cursing like every other game. I want wins, baby. However, if Duke somehow falls on Friday or Saturday, I won’t lose too much sleep over it. The real fun starts next Thursday/Friday.

QUICK HITS:

- Has Singler hit the freshman wall? It is fair to start asking this question. The ACC freshman of the year has struggled the past few weeks and against Clemson, he hit a new low; 1-9 from the field, including 0-5 from three. He twice had open looks at the end of the game that would have been HUGE and he missed them both. He has now gone eight games shooting .500 or below (32-93 from the floor, 10-44 from three). If he can’t get it together, Duke won’t be playing in the second weekend of the tournament. (more…)

QUICK HITS

- After thirteen minutes of action and Duke up 36-16, I declared it was the best basketball Duke has played all season. They were dominating with stout defense and patient offense. They had zero turnovers and were killing Tech on the boards…all this with (arguable) their best player, Singler, sitting on the bench with foul trouble.

(more…)

- Coach K accepts the torch. No word on whether he’ll burn the place down. (Sports Illustrated)

- Devils are settled, but not going to settle for less (Fay Observer)

- We’re both number one! Really? (Covers)