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Duke Survives in Thriller Against Belmont, 71-70

By Jake Lloyd

Mar 21, 2008

Washington — The Bruins of Belmont were the unquestioned underdog when they took the Verizon Center court Thursday night to face off with two seed Duke.

There were a few Blue Devils, however, who were in a similar position to the Bruins.

Belmont has been a Division I team since 1997 and wasn't eligible to participate in the NCAA Tournament until 2002. It lost its first two tournament games in each of the past two seasons.

Duke's quartet of scholarship sophomores — Gerald Henderson, Jon Scheyer, Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek — was hardly in a different spot when the Devils took the court.

Each of them was in the Buffalo arena a year ago when Virginia Commonwealth's Eric Maynor hit a shot over Scheyer to send the Devils packing in the opening round. Each of them was 0-for in the NCAA Tournament.

On Thursday night, the sophomores did just enough to lead the Devils past the upset-minded Bruins 71-70 in the first round of the West Regional.

Duke will try to make the Sweet 16 for the 10th time in 11 years when it takes on either seven seed West Virginia or 10 seed Arizona in the second round Saturday.

Henderson was the hero, grabbing a rebound and dribbling the ball the length of the court for the game-winning finger-roll layup that touched nothing but the net with 12 seconds remaining. The shot came after Henderson's runner in the lane rattled out on Duke's previous possession.

"There was a chance," Henderson said about the possibility of passing the ball. "Kyle (Singer) said he was open. He was open for a split second, but I wasn't gonna risk that heave of a pass.

"I missed that bucket before, and I guess selfishly, I wanted to get that back."

Henderson finished with a game-high 21 points and Scheyer added 13.

Belmont (25-9) had a chance to retake the lead, but Justin Hare air-balled a runner and — after the Bruins kept possession on a jump ball and called timeout — Alex Renfroe's lob inbound pass went right into the arms of Duke's DeMarcus Nelson.

"I don't think it was Alex's fault," Belmont coach Rick Byrd said of Renfroe, who led the Bruins with 15 points. Mathew Dotson and Andy Wicke each added 14 points.

After Nelson missed the front-end of a one-and-one opportunity, the Bruins had 2.2 seconds remaining to score from 94 feet away, but Hare's half-court shot caromed off the bottom left corner of the backboard.

And the No. 9 Devils (28-5) celebrated — really. They didn't care that they had beaten a 15 seed by a mere point. Especially to the sophomores, the "W" was all that mattered.

"A win is a win in this tournament," a relieved Thomas said. "In this tournament … it doesn't matter.

"At the end, it's do or die. You're not promised tomorrow, so you've got to make the most of it."

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski emphasized that Thursday's nail-biter wasn't the result of the Devils taking Belmont lightly.

"Well, we played against a team that played an amazing game," Krzyzewski said. "They're very good. I mean, they're just — we were ready to play.

"You won't hear any of our players say that we overlooked them, there's no way."

Scheyer and Henderson took turns leading the Devils. On a night when Nelson was clearly off his game — 1-of-6 shooting, two points, four turnovers — someone else had a to step up in the hostile, decidedly pro-Belmont environment.

The sophomores answered the call.

In the first half, the skinny, 6-foot-5, 180-pound Scheyer threw his body around in the lane, getting to the free-throw line six times and converting every one of them. His 10 points helped the Devils to a relatively cozy 42-35 halftime advantage.

Thomas and Zoubek also made their presence felt against the smaller Bruins, collecting nine of Duke's 19 first-half rebounds, including six offensive boards.

The second half belonged to Henderson, who's been nursing a sore right wrist that he'll get surgery on after the season. In the final 20 minutes, he scored 17 points and grabbed six hard-fought rebounds.

And he received a big post-game hug from Nelson, who didn't want to see his career end — especially after struggling for most of the night.

"(It was) just a rough game, really," Nelson said of his performance.

"Obviously, I would have liked to have had a better performance tonight, but it's not about me — it's about the team."

Henderson scored Duke's final eight points, getting four of them on free throws and banking in a runner from the right side of the lane in addition to the game-winner. Scheyer said that his fellow second-year player looked mad on the court, as if he had experienced a bad day.

"I thought he played angry, and that was a big difference," Scheyer said. "He just played — you could see the look in his eye; it changed from the first half.

"Obviously, he's a great player, and he showed that in the last part of the game."

But despite Scheyer's aggressiveness in the first half and Henderson's "angry" second-half performance, the game was Belmont's for the taking. The Bruins had their chances. Belmont got 30 points from its bench — with nine of 10 players scoring — and hit several clutch shots in the final minutes.

"It was a great feeling and we were all excited to compete with a team like Duke, but at the same time, the game was right there in our grasp and it slipped away from us," Renfroe said.

"It was disappointing, but of course we were happy to be here. We came here to win and when you fall short of that, it's a heartbreaker."

Belmont had Duke on its heels all night by mixing things up offensively. The Bruins entered the game mostly known for their 3-point shooting, but they hurt Duke with backdoor cuts and by blowing by the Devils to the basket.

The Bruins attempted less 3s than the Devils, making six of 21 from behind the arc. Duke converted eight of 23 triples.

At one point, the 7-1 Zoubek found himself matched up against the 6-2, 160-pound Renfroe. Byrd called for an isolation play, and Renfroe accelerated past Zoubek, scored a layup and was fouled.

"Everybody was capable of hitting the 3 and they had a really quick point guard who was quick going both ways," Thomas said, "And he made a lot of big plays for them, whether it was driving and kicking to their best shooters…

"I'm just happy we got the win."

That was the dominant opinion in the Duke locker room afterward. Forget that it was against a 15 seed, against a team that's only been NCAA Tournament-eligible for seven seasons and never won a Big Dance game.

"Obviously, I would have rather not had it where they had a couple shots at the end to win it," Scheyer said, "but we're very relieved as a team. The point is to move on to the next round, regardless of if you win by one or a hundred.

"Sounds cliché, but it's the truth. It's about moving on."

And for the Devils, Thursday night was also about erasing the memory of that Thursday evening a year ago. Scheyer said that the players couldn't completely block out thoughts about last season as the game went on — and the pressure on the favorites built — but he added that there was a big difference in what Duke's huddles were like in crunch time compared to a year ago.

"No," Thomas responded when asked if he ever thought, "Here we go again."

"Just because," he continued, "we got too many guys on our team who know what that feeling felt like. We knew we were gonna do whatever it took to win.

"And that's getting a stop under our basket when they had the inbound (pass) … or 'G' finishing at the end.

"We knew we had to make a play to win the game."