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Duke

Duke wins 17th ACC Tournament title with 79-69 win over Florida State

By Jake Lloyd

Mar 16, 2009

Within three hours, they would have a new task, a new opponent and a new tournament to win.

But the Duke Blue Devils weren’t too worried about that in the middle of Sunday afternoon, as Nolan Smith and Lance Thomas did a little dance.

“We be clowning,” Thomas said.

And then, finally, they posed for a team picture with a very important trophy. Duke was a champion once again, beating Florida State 79-69 inside the Georgia Dome to win the 2009 ACC Tournament.

Tournament MVP Jon Scheyer scored 29 points and Henderson added 27 in the triumph.

“The trophy, it just makes you want another one,” Thomas said in a jubilant Duke locker room. “It makes us realize how good we really are. The ACC has great teams in it. At the end, the best team wins.”

That’s the kind of confidence the ninth-ranked Blue Devils (28-6) are playing with, a strong belief in each other that they’ve been striving to attain since their last ACC Tournament title in 2006.

In 2007, they were young and inexperienced, and fell apart at the end of the season. A similar, but milder collapse happened again last season.

But now that they’ve won the school’s 17th tournament championship — tying North Carolina for the most of any ACC team — and gotten to touch that trophy, the Blue Devils are playing with the swagger that is usually associated with teams under coach Mike Krzyzewski.

That was evident in the second half, when Henderson passed to a wide-open Scheyer on the perimeter. As soon as Scheyer received the ball, Henderson started backpedaling down the court.

It wasn’t just to get back on defense. He knew what the result of the shot would be: nothing but net and a commanding 65-43 advantage, Duke’s biggest of the day.

“It was just one of those games where we’re hot (from 3-point range), we’re making connecting plays,” Henderson said.

Duke shot just 24-for-58 (41.4 percent), but the Blue Devils made 12 of 25 3-pointers. Just as important, they valued the basketball and tried to make the most of every possession.

Against one of the ACC’s biggest teams, Duke won the rebounding battle 35-34 and took nine more shots than the Seminoles.

Assistant coach Chris Collins talked Saturday night about how Duke, which has won eight out of nine games, has learned to value the basketball every minute of every game. That was extremely evident on Sunday, as the Blue Devils turned it over a season-low four times against the league’s best statistical defense.

“We’re definitely on offense trying to take our time, and we know that we can get a good shot every time down the court,” said Smith, who was a big contributor during the tournament after missing three games with a minor concussion.

“We don’t have to force anything. We have plenty of weapons offensively, that at the end of the clock Gerald, Jon, Kyle (Singler) or myself can get into the lane and create a shot for someone else.”

Henderson demonstrated that on back-to-back possessions in the second half. First he made a Michael Jordan-like fadeaway jumper over a taller Florida State player. And on Duke’s next possession, he used his impressive jumping ability to elevate over a defender and knock down a long 3-pointer from the top of the key with the shot clock winding down.

Those are the types of shots that the Blue Devils know are needed in March, when the game often slows down to a half-court battle and easy shots are hard to come by.

There was never any panic on Duke’s part Sunday. When Florida State cut a 17-point deficit down to six almost midway through the second half, Smith made an unselfish pass to Scheyer for a 3-pointer and Duke quickly extended its margin to 22.

When Florida State responded by scoring 10 straight points to get back within 12, the Blue Devils withstood that charge, too, by taking care of the ball and making free throws.

“They made a run and we were able to stay composed, come down on offense and get a good shot,” Smith said. “Early in the second half we were missing the shots we were making in the first half.

“But we stayed calm and were still getting good shots, so we were confidant in the shots we were missing. We just kept taking them and they started to fall again.”

Collins also mentioned after Duke’s 67-61 semifinal win over Maryland how the postseason schedule has helped the team rediscover its defensive edge. After holding its first seven ACC opponents to 70 points or less — and five of them to 59 points or less — Duke struggled in February to stop teams.

North Carolina scored 101 points. Boston College put up 80. Wake Forest scored 91. Florida State posted 81.

But then the Blue Devils had four days off between their last two regular-season games and another four days before their first ACC Tournament game. That gave them plenty of time to readdress their principles and get down to business ironing them out.

“You see it by the talking, you see it by the body language,” Collins said Saturday. “I think you just get back to the basics and fundamentals — guarding the ball, help-side, your communication system.

“And you just get sharp again.”

That was evident in the first half Sunday, when Duke built a 17-point lead before taking a 35-21 advantage to halftime. The Blue Devils swarmed Douglas, switching on any ball screen he received (unless 7-foot-1 center Brian Zoubek was involved).

Douglas missed some shots he usually makes, but he was constantly harassed by Duke defenders — and he shot just 2-for-8 in the half.

The runner-up for ACC player of the year ended up with 28 points (and 80 for the tournament), but many of them came in the final minutes when Duke was in control.

Duke also swarmed Florida State’s interior players, helping each other and never leaving one defender stranded. Seminoles big man Solomon Alabi experienced this and scored a modest 10 points, and Florida State had just 24 points in the paint.

The Blue Devils held their three tournament opponents to 65, 61 and 69 points.

“They do a very good job of what I call gang-defending the lane,” Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton said. “Unless you are shooting very well from the perimeter, it’s difficult to maneuver with the way they help.

“I’ve learned an awful lot from watching them defensively.”

The Blue Devils have learned a lot from the past three seasons, with learning to keep believing topping the list.

Now they have that swagger gained from winning something big, from getting to grasp that trophy, cut down a net and — in Smith and Thomas’ case — do a little jig.

The new challenge is imminent, however. Because as the Blue Devils celebrated and smiled for the cameras Sunday — celebrating their eighth ACC title in 11 years — they were just hours away from beginning their quest for another tournament title.

An even bigger one.

“We’ll still look back on this moment for a while just to draw from (it),” said Singler, who scored 14 points and had eight votes for tournament MVP to Scheyer’s nine.

“But we kind of have to move on like right now. It’s nice winning, but as soon as they draw and pick who you’re going to play in the tournament in the next couple hours, your focus switches to that.”