Ball Durham
Fansided

800 and Counting

By robmurray

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This game wasn’t supposed to end like this. All the numbers, all game long, added up to defeat. Just look at it…

– At the half, State shot 60%, Duke shot 35%– Singler played only 11 minutes…0/6 from the floor– At the 15:36 mark of the second half, NC State was 17-17 from the free throws, 6-8 from threes, 19-33 from the floor.– State had their largest lead at at the 12 minute mark, 70-57– With 11:40 mark, Singler & Henderson were 5-19 from the floor, 1-5 from three.– Down the stretch, Duke gets it close, but they missed four straight free throws, including two front ends of a 1-1.
– At the half, State shot 60%, Duke shot 35%– Singler played only 11 minutes…0/6 from the floor– At the 15:36 mark of the second half, NC State was 17-17 from the free throws, 6-8 from threes, 19-33 from the floor.– State had their largest lead at at the 12 minute mark, 70-57– With 11:40 mark, Singler & Henderson were 5-19 from the floor, 1-5 from three.– Down the stretch, Duke gets it close, but they missed four straight free throws, including two front ends of a 1-1. /

You’re not supposed to win games with those kind of stats. I recall at the 12-minute mark saying to my drunken self, it’s all over. No ACC title. No #1 seed. Here comes all the experts, Duke falls apart again.

Yet, when the clock hit zeros, the Blue Devils walked away with a one point victory. Let’s dive right into it.

QUICK HITS

– First and foremost, congratulations to Coach Krzyzewski for win number 800. He’s now 102 behind all time winner, Bobby Knight. He’s also on pace to score the most wins after 33 seasons. He’s currently three behind the great Carolina coach, Dean Smith. Currently, he’s three back and he should be able to win four more games this year. As for taking the all-time record, although I believe Knight will be back coaching again, Krzyzewski will pass him up eventually. In fact, he should break 1,000 career wins within 8-9 years.

– Despite this win, the stats were not pretty. NC State shot 54% to Duke’s 38%. This is Carolina-style D, not Blue Devils. We don’t have the firepower to keep letting our opponents 85+ per game.

– The free throw stats were amazing. The officials were all over this game early on, calling fouls on nearly all possessions. Besides that, the two teams shot 55-66 for the game (83%). Ironically, I thought it would be four of Duke’s seven misses that would kill them, but instead it was three of the Wolfpack’s four misses that cost them. Up four with 2:29 to go, NC State split their last six free throws. Duke responded with a Nelson three, a Paulus three and two Nelson free throws.
– The free throw stats were amazing. The officials were all over this game early on, calling fouls on nearly all possessions. Besides that, the two teams shot 55-66 for the game (83%). Ironically, I thought it would be four of Duke’s seven misses that would kill them, but instead it was three of the Wolfpack’s four misses that cost them. Up four with 2:29 to go, NC State split their last six free throws. Duke responded with a Nelson three, a Paulus three and two Nelson free throws. /

– Where was Lance Thomas at? He disappeared from this game. He took one shot (a miss) and he went 0-3 from the free throw line. He did manage to pull down five rebounds to only two fouls. Again, we want more points and rebound than fouls. So this game is a split.

– Duke took 57 shots. They took 29 two’s and 28 three’s. They made nine 2’s and thirteen 3’s. Duke mainly struggled with their mid-range jumpers and around the rim. The big men struggled on easy shots and too often Henderson, Singler and Nelson found a hole, drove to the basket and missed some easy shots within five-feet of the basket.

– Quick, who had the best shooting percentage for Duke? Brian Zoebek; 2-3 from the floor.

– In our preview, we talked about the bench getting their time on the floor. We wanted the five bench men to get 10 minutes on the floor. Obviously Scheyer would get his, but only two reach the ten-minute mark.

– Last game, I talked about if you keep turnovers in single digits, you win. I was proven right again. Duke turned it over only eight times for the second straight game.

– I’m a Sidney Lowe fan, so I hate to bad mouth him, but that was a terrible strategy down the stretch. Down one with 40 seconds to go, Lowe decided not to foul, allowing Duke to run the entire 35-second clock down. By the time State pulled down Scheyer’s heave, they had less than four seconds to get the ball into the right hands, down the court for a decent shot. This made no sense. While Duke had a solid game from the free throw line, they are still only a 68% free throw shooting team. In fact, in the second half, they were only shooting around 67% in the second half (14-21). They should have fouled Duke. That’s it!

– A quick non-Duke thought: Do you think Tyrese Rice is a little pissed off that UNC didn’t offer him up a scholarship. It was still a defeat, but 48 points was pretty amazing. The way he abused Ty Lawson, should make Duke’s guards drool.

Least creative chant ever: Paulus you suck! (Wow, how many hours did NC State fans gather to come up with).

Player of the game: Jon Scheyer was the man who kept the game close in the first half. While NC State couldn’t miss and Duke’s percentages kept dropping, Scheyer was the only player in the first half that could drop a few shots. He finished with 19 points, 4-8 from the floor (3-5 from 3’s), and 8-8 from the free throw line.

Props got to: Javier Gonzalez had a great game; He finished with 18 points, 6-7 from the floor (4-4 from 3’s). His only mistake were the two huge missed free throws in the last 2:30 of the game.

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