Game Blog: Duke's season ends with 77-54 loss to 'Nova
Mar 27, 2009
Jake Lloyd of WRALSportsFan is in Boston covering Thursday's game between Duke and Villanova. This is his live report.
12:12 a.m., All but over here in Beantown: This one's basically in the books, folks. 'Nova leads by 18 here at the last media timeout.
It'll be interesting to see what the Devils say afterward, but one thing's for sure: This simply hasn't been their night. 'Nova hasn't even played that great, missing a lot of open shots. It could be up by a lot more.
In the second half, the Devils got down double digits and then seemed to settle for way too many outside shots. And when they've gotten to the basket, they haven't taken it strong enough to get foul calls.
Time to finish this one up. Thanks for reading, everybody.
12:03 a.m., New day, same thing: The Devils are settling for outside shots instead of driving the ball, getting the free-throw line and stopping the game. That's not helping them get back in the game.
If 'Nova was hitting its open outside shots, it could be up by more than 20 now.
11:47 p.m., Easier buckets for 'Nova: Well, the Wildcats are in control now. And they're doing it by taking advantage of Duke's tight defense on the perimeter. Singler just intercepted a backdoor cut a minute ago, but that was after the 'Cats scored two layups off of cuts from the pereimter.
What's amazing is that 'Nova is up by this much yet hasn't done anything from 3-point range. It normally doesn't win unless it makes more than five 3s a game.
Henderson still on the bench. He's got to be back soon with this deficit facing Duke.
11:32 p.m., 'Nova's lead reaches double digits: Duke's offense simply looks out of sorts right now. There's a lot of players looking at each other, not reading well what each other is doing. And that hurts a lot when it comes to 3-point shooting because no one's in sync. Players aren't catching the ball when they expect to. There's no rhythm.
On the other end, the 'Cats have beaten the Devils down the floor a couple times for easy buckets and a double-digit lead.
And guess who's enterting for the first time? Senior Greg Paulus. To shoot, I would think...
11:25 p.m., Angry Henderson: I haven't seen Henderson this mad in a while. During this Duke timeout, he quickly got in the face of Williams, yelling at the freshman for something that happened on Duke's last possession. The junior is clearly frustrated. We'll see what his response is.
11:18 p.m., A prettier second half?: Well, both teams have had 20 minutes to think about that opening 20 minutes. A 20 minutes during which Duke made just five field goals during the final 19 minutes. A 20 minutes during which Henderson didn't score until about the final minute.
Duke should't be fazed, however. It played a similar ugly half in the first round of the ACC Tournament against B.C. and got it together enough in the second half. The fact that they're in the game here should have them ready to forget the first 20 minutes once play resumes.
10:59 p.m., Halftime here in Boston: Wow, what an ugly first half. That's a good thing for Duke. The 'Cats have taken better shots and have stayed out of foul trouble (unlike the Devils), yet they only have a slim lead. Go figure.
If I'm Duke right now, I'm considering myself very fortunate. Horrible first halves by the Big Three, and the Devils are right in the game.
To 'Nova's credit, it's doing a very solid job of guarding the perimeter.
10:48 p.m., How is Duke in this game?: The Devils are shooting horribly. Earlier, they were getting open looks. Now, they're hardly even getting a shot at the end of the shot clock (just ask a visibly frustrated Jon Scheyer). With his team struggling so much, K isn't waiting until halftime to insert Henderson.
We'll see if Henderson can get it going now or if he'll need a halftime pep talk (or something).
Credit Duke's defense and rebounding for keeping this close.
10:36 p.m., Zoubek getting it done, but in foul trouble: Of all the players on Duke's roster, Zoubek is the last guy I expected to contribute tonight. But give the guy props. He's guarded guys near the perimeter, cleaned up every 'Nova miss by him and got one on the offensive end as well.
I guess K thought he could use him as a secret weapon. But seriously, he can be used because Cunningham isn't that great outside of 15 feet. 'Zoubs doesn't have to guard him outside of the 3-point arc.
But Duke can't hit anything from outside. It'll need to start hitting if it wants to have a chance down the stretch.
10:27 p.m., Scheyer's ability to get fouled: Go ahead, try to name me a perimeter player in the college game today who is better than Scheyer at getting fouled shooting a jump shot. He's already done it a couple times tonight, helping Duke stay in the game despite hardly anything from Singler and Henderson.
He simply has a way of getting his defender thinking he's going to shoot with a fake and then quickly going up and drawing the contact once the defender commits. And he has a way of convincing the refs with his body language that it's a foul.
Duke's doing a good job of cleaning up on the boards, allowing the 'Cats just one shot on most possessions. That's a reason they're in the game.
10:16 p.m., Duke starts out cold: One of the story lines coming into the game was Henderson and all his connections to the team and the game. His father, Gerald Henderson Sr., won two championships here as a Celtic and is sitting directly across from me.
But Henderson has gotten off to a rough start, missing some open looks and throwing a pass right to the 'Cats. Duke needs him to get it going quickly tonight.
Meanwhile, the Devils better stay right in Reynolds' face. Elliot Willims won't stay in long if he gives him any more wide-open looks.
It looks like Zoubek will play despite the opponent. Usually he gets hardly any minutes against such a small, quick team.
10:05 p.m., Duke gets booed, what's new?: We are here in the Northeast, so you would think there's a strong Duke contingent here (a pretty good-sized Duke section is directly across from me), but that didn't stop the Devils from getting a loud boo each time they ran onto the court in the past 20 minutes. Nothing they ain't used to, right?
I think we're about to watch some hoops here ... really.
10 p.m., A couple things to watch:
1. As you probably know by now, these teams are very similar. Gerald Henderson said yesterday that he looks in the mirror and sees the Wildcats (that has an added layer of intrigue since ‘Nova was the other school Duke’s all-ACC selection strongly considered). The game will be perimeter-oriented, dominated by guys who can put the ball on the fake Garden’s floor and either drive to the basket or shoot it from deep. Look for the Wildcats’ Scottie Reynolds to do a lot of that.
2. It will be interesting to see how Duke guards ‘Nova’s big man and leading scorer, Dante Cunningham. He’s a 6-8 forward who operates in between the basket and the 3-point arc. I would think Lance Thomas defends him, since Thomas has shown the ability to be versatile defensively.
3. On paper, the Wildcats have a huge advantage off the bench. Guards Corey Fisher and Corey Stokes combine for over 20 points a game. At least the Blue Devils can say that recently their bench has contributed, especially in their most recent win over Texas. At the end of that game, with Thomas and Kyle Singler fouled out, David McClure and Brian Zoubek played the closing minute. Also, Nolan Smith has played his best basketball of the season since returning from the minor concussion he suffered back in late February. He’ll probably play even minutes with freshman starter Elliot Williams.
9:56 p.m., Will not end before midnight: Good evening here from Boston, or should I say goodnight? We just got an official tip time from the PA announcer, and they’re going to get this one going at 10:08 p.m.
All things considered, that’s not too bad. Not when you consider how long the timeouts are during these NCAA Tournament games. During Pitt’s thrilling win over Xavier, I thought about using a media timeout to go walk the Freedom Trail (but it’s raining outside; at least last time I checked).
Anyway, this should be a good one. So grab some form of caffeine if you need and settle in. You can entertain yourselves (I hope) by checking in here for updates during those insanely long timeouts.
