There was very little talk about the depth and versatility of the Duke basketball defense entering its Elite 8 matchup against Alabama after the Crimson Tide put on a historic offensive display in the Sweet 16 against BYU.
Following 25 3-pointers, an NCAA Tournament record, many thought it would be a challenge for the Blue Devils to slow down Mark Sears and company, but they made it look relatively easy.
Alabama scored just 65 points, which was one point shy of a season worst, and made just 35.4-percent of its shots and 25-percent from 3-point range.
Sears, after his 34-point night, had only six points on 2-of-12 shooting.
The Crimson Tide never led in the game and could never get comfortable against the size and depth of Duke.
“It's hard,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said after the 20-point loss. “You've got the one-day prep.”
“We still got some decent looks from three and we just didn't hit them.”
The Tide tried to hang in the first half with Duke’s rolling offense, making 40-percent of its shots but in the second half the Blue Devils reached another level defensively that Alabama couldn’t solve.
Jon Scheyer watched his team limit the nation’s highest scoring offense to just 9-of-30 after halftime and pulled away late to cruise to its first Final Four since 2022.
“Is that good enough to beat Duke?” Oats questioned of his team’s offensive performance. “Yeah, if you do everything else at an elite level and we didn't do that.”
“We didn't finish at the paint, didn't get to the O-boards well enough. We had too many turnovers. We had three turnovers before the first media time-out, which dug us a huge hole right out of the gate. Our defense wasn't where it needed to be in the first four minutes, and we turned the ball over three times.”
The closest Alabama would get after the 11:30 mark of the first half was within six. Every time the Crimson Tide tried to make a run, Duke responded quickly.
“We dug ourselves a hole early, gave ourselves some adversity we had to face. I thought we did a decent job fighting back, but they're too good a team to dig yourselves a big hole.”
Duke will now await the winner of No. 1 Houston against No. 2 Tennessee to see who they will play on Saturday in San Antonio in the Final Four.