The Duke basketball team suffered a pathetic loss against the Miami Hurricanes.
All of the positive feelings and momentum the Duke basketball team had created in its last two victories were completely erased in 40 minutes on Monday night.
The Blue Devils (7-6, 5-4 ACC) made the trip to South Beach to face a short-handed Miami Hurricanes (7-10, 3-9 ACC) team, and the Duke players thought they were good enough to just show up and win.
They were not.
Miami picked up the upset victory, 77-75.
Head coach Mike Krzyzewski tried anything to get his team in the flow of the game; zone defense, man-to-man, and a full-court press, and none truly worked.
Miami entered Monday’s matchup shooting 28.3-percent from three-point range, and Duke allowed the ‘Canes to shoot 7-of-13 from deep, 5-of-6 in the second half.
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Duke was led by Matthew Hurt’s 21 points, and the sophomore got the Blue Devils back in the game, somewhat, with 15 seconds to go, drawing a foul on a three-point shot to cut the Miami lead back down to two.
After a missed front-end of a 1-and-1 from Isaiah Wong, Hurt and Jalen Johnson briefly fought over the rebound, with no Miami player around, as Duke tried to tie or take the lead with 4.6 seconds left.
Johnson brought the ball past halfcourt but passed with less than a second left to Hurt, who wasn’t able to get a shot up before time expired because of the pass.
The five-star freshman had a nice night in terms of his stat line, but his effort was questionable, specifically on defense, with 13 points and seven rebounds.
Duke basketball loss might be unfixable
The previous five losses for the Blue Devils prior to Monday night were all respectable.
Yes, Duke needed to win some of those games in order to be a lock for the NCAA Tournament, but a loss to the Hurricanes might be the final nail in the coffin for an at-large bid for the Blue Devils, outside of running the table or winning the ACC Tournament.
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Miami is one of the worst teams in a power conference, and it was a game Duke needed to have to continue its trajectory to make the Big Dance.
Now with more questions than ever surrounding the postseason, the Blue Devils will return home to face archrival North Carolina (11-5, 6-3 ACC) on Saturday night.