Duke Is Headed To The Final Four

The Duke Blue Devils defeated the Gonzaga Bulldogs on Sunday evening and punched their ticket to the Final Four in Indianapolis. While Duke didn’t shoot the ball particularly well, their defense has been resurgent this tournament and is the main reason they are going to the Final Four.

Both teams came into this game known as offensive juggernauts. Gonzaga came in first in the nation in field goal percentage at 52 percent as a team, and both teams average nearly 80 points per game.

The final score of this game was surprisingly 66-52 in a game many thought would end up in the 70’s or 80’s. Both teams played great defense, but Duke was able to really lockdown Gonzaga and pull off the victory.

Duke held Gonzaga to 44 percent shooting and only 2-10 from beyond the arc. The major key to this game, though, was the turnover battle. Duke only turned the ball over three times the entire game, while they forced the Zags to commit 13 turnovers.

Aside from the turnovers and three point shooting, Gonzaga looked to be in better shape just based solely on the numbers. They out-rebounded Duke, and held them to only 37 percent shooting, but in the end all that matters is the fact that Duke won the game and is now headed to Indianapolis.

One knock against Duke is their lack of depth, a concept I have argued is overplayed. Duke really only played six guys significant minutes on Sunday, but the one starter that is never talked about ended up being the star of the game, and that was Matt Jones. Jones was the only Blue Devil to shoot better than 50 percent on Sunday and his three point shooting gave Duke an enormous lift. He ended the game tied for a game high with 16 points.

On a night when Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow, Tyus Jones, and Quinn Cook all struggled shooting Duke was still able to pull off a double digit victory. Winslow shot 4-12 from the field, but as always, he made a huge impact on the game because of his defense, and made all six of his free throws (61% free throw shooter on the year.)

Duke has proven that it can win games in many different ways. Typically they shoot the lights out and beat you with offense, but throughout this tournament they have shown they can beat teams with defense too and that has to be scary for their future opponents because you have to assume the shooting will get better at some point, the numbers say so.

This will be Mike Krzyzewski’s twelfth Final Four as the Duke head coach and his next task will be to take on Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans. Michigan State is this years cinderella team, and although Duke beat them earlier this year, both teams are vastly improved since then.

The Final Four will be played on Saturday, April 4th in Indianapolis where the winner of Duke-Michigan State will play the winner of Kentucky-Wisconsin for all of the marbles.