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Duke Basketball: Blue Devils playing for ACC Title against Florida State

By Kevin Connelly

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 15: Zion Williamson #1 and Cam Reddish #2 of the Duke Blue Devils huddle with teammates against the North Carolina Tar Heels during their game in the semifinals of the 2019 Men's ACC Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 15, 2019 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 15: Zion Williamson #1 and Cam Reddish #2 of the Duke Blue Devils huddle with teammates against the North Carolina Tar Heels during their game in the semifinals of the 2019 Men's ACC Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 15, 2019 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /
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The Duke Basketball team will be playing for the ACC Championship on Saturday night as the Blue Devils take on the Florida State Seminoles.

It’s ACC Championship Saturday and after a year hiatus, the Duke Blue Devils will be back playing for the conference title.

The Blue Devils defeated the North Carolina Tar Heels on Friday night and the Syracuse Orange on Thursday to get to this point, while their opponent, the Florida State Seminoles, defeated the Virginia Cavaliers on Friday after beating Virginia Tech on Thursday.

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Duke and Florida State only met once in the regular season and it was during the work stretch of the season for the Seminoles.

However, FSU went on a late run in the first half and opened up a bigger lead on the Blue Devils in the second half before a furious Duke comeback, capped off by a Cam Reddish game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer.

Zion Williamson did not play in the last few minutes of the first half as well as the entire second half after getting poked in the eye.

Saturday night will be the second time this season that the Blue Devils will be playing in its third game in three days for a championship. The first time that happened this season was in the Maui Invitational when Duke could not complete the comeback and fell to Gonzaga by two points.

The length and athleticism of Florida State gave Duke some trouble in the first matchup and the Seminoles used that advantage to its benefit once again last night against Virginia.

It will be very interesting to see how much left Duke has in the tank after an emotional and tiring game last night against North Carolina.

Florida State should want to try and turn this game into a track meet in the first half and try to tire Duke out in the first half.

Prior to the season, this Duke team said that they wanted to be the best Duke team ever, and obviously that’s a very, very high goal.

However, in order to be the best Duke team ever, you have to bring some hardware back to Durham.

The Blue Devils failed to win the first two championships they were playing for this season (Maui Invitational, and ACC Regular Season), but all could be forgiven if Duke were to win the last two championships they are playing for and that starts tonight.

PREDICTION: Duke 80, Florida State 71

Stay tuned to Ball Durham on Twitter, @Ball_Durham, and here at our website, balldurham.com, for complete coverage of the Duke Blue Devils vs. the Florida State Seminoles. 

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