Great to win those 5-on-8 games. Gutty performance.
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Great to win those 5-on-8 games. Gutty performance.
Nice job tonight and Miles and Ryan did lots of great work to keep us on top. Go DUKE
Huge win! Great performance! Maybe this team has a chance to win that first round NCAA game.
A monster shooting night from behind the arc. Our bigs had to battle against foul trouble all night long so our guards went to work. Dawkins set the tone and Rivers played a very nice game as well.
I do like how our bigs stayed aggressive throughout the game though. A lot of times players get tentative and think too much in those situations.
Definitely a big win. Onto the next one.
Very impressive win by Duke. Thought the other 2 refs were fine, Ted Valentine was brutal. Dawkins, Rivers, Mi Plumlee were big time tonight. I wish we could get a free throw rebound tonight. Mason sure did struggle. Curry came on in the 2nd half which was great to see. Quick turnaround Saturday!
I thought Miles was The Man tonight. He brought a Gatling gun to a knife fight. Huge. We needed his minutes with Mason's foul trouble. FSU has an athletic front line and he matched them. Did all the dirty work.
Big win. Big, big, big win.
We really came to play tonight. Really gritty all game - Rivers hit a lot of key moment baskets. Andre was ridiculous. Miles is really starting to become the heart of the team - huge early spark.
Perhaps our best all around game since November. This was a 20 point win officiating aside.
Ditto, a couple key late baskets by Seth!
Another team effort 7-0 on the road in conference! Awesome
Miles was definitely a major factor. Gritty win, felt in doubt until the last two minutes or so. Without Dawkins we aren't even in the game, though. He was superb. FSU had almost no 3-point shooting, we had lots; that was the difference.
Looked bad when Austin went down. Glad he appears OK.
I am really happy with the mental strength and confidence our guys played with tonight. Given the circumstances of atrocious reffing, a hungry (and oh-so classy) crowd, and an incredibly physical opponent playing for something...they played a great game. No nit-picking of the negatives tonight for me...just really fun to see our guys play a man's game tonight.
Two thoughts:
1) We need to petition NCAA to retire Hess, Valentine, and Luckie.
2) Hope Austin isn't hurt. Remember Kyrie played out the game in which he was injured.
Teddy Valentine was NOT going to be shown up by Karl Hess!
7-0 now. With just a trip to Winston away from pulling off 8-0. I'm hesitant to mention it (and firmly knocking on wood as I do), but was 1999 the last time we went undefeated in the ACC away from Cameron?*
*no comment about how the unbalanced schedule, including no trips to Charlottesville, Raleigh, or Coral Gables, may have aided our potential ability to do this.
Seth -- I would think it is easy to have a cold night, and just keep missing, but correctly noted, those shots were that much bigger because of that.
I thought Ryan hit a three at a moment when nobody, particularly Austin, seemed to want to shoot. Big for that reason alone.
The much maligned D showed up.
I'm going to go over to IC and complain about the refs now. What an atrocity of a game, and I don't think it was just Valentine.
I'm so glad I found ESPN in hockey-loving canada. This was one of my favorite games to watch this season. We showed the toughness to battle 5 on 8!
-c
I thought the team showed a lot of heart tonight. Miles had a great game, Andre had a great game, Seth showed at the end of the game. The only negative is that Mason was the invisible man tonight.
Perfect set up for beating the Tarheels for the regular season title.
Nice win. Survive, improve, move on.
Either our defense improved dramatically, or they suck at offense. Still, great win and great hustle all over the floor tonight. We played with confidence at every position. Also, I was really impressed with our ability to survive FSU's runs and keep the crowd out of the game. If we play like this every night we might win another game or two...
Andre got the post game interview on ESPNews!!!
If we play with the desire and the focus we had tonight, we may lose but we will not EVER look bad (I'm thinking about you, Arizona game last season). I think we rounded the corner tonight and left behind a lot of "baggage" that had accumulated for this team. Carolina, State, and now a very substantial win in a place that has traditionally given us a lot of problems. I realize that coach K wants to win out in the regular season ACC. We held serve tonight. GTHC (and, oh yeah, Carolina GTH) :D
I didn't see the box score yet, but I think Seth held his TOs down while playing good defense and chipping in with a few points in key situations. The size and aggressiveness of FSU held his scoring numbers down, but I thought his maturity showed and he played well.
Austin was very impressive tonight with both offensive and defense being stellar. He doesn't seem to get flustered by physical play and he certainly took some hits in the game. Hope his ankle will be okay.
Andre shot so well tonight. We needed it and he delovered. I thought he defense was good but coach K played Thornton toward the end until FSC went small. I defer to coach K on that one.
Both Ryan and Miles did an excellent job contesting inside while hitting a lot of key points. It was good they could, since Mason had another off game, that was really pretty sorry. Maybe his dad needs to talk to him and get him going again.
This was a big win, on the road, against a very big, physical, deep and competitive team. Lets hope that the guys can recover on a short turnaround to handle VT on Saturday. Love to see Mason get it together and have a big game. We need him to play well to make a deep run.
One word i thought was Tough..We were mentally & physically tough.
Obviously, the biggest reason that Duke won this game was the 3 point shooting. Dawkins and Rivers hit 3's to build the lead early, and Kelly and Curry each his some really clutch threes in the second half to stop FSU runs. I really want to commend Duke on their team rebounding though. They gave up a pretty big number of offensive rebounds to FSU, but their weren't a lot of them that were really frustrating. They gave up several in the last two minutes (including 3 on missed free throws) when they were pretty much in "don't foul" mode. Most of the others were caused by someone being open as a result of help defense forcing a miss in the first place. Duke did a great job at keeping rebounds alive and the big guys didn't try to do too much and would tap the ball to crashing guards. I don't have a count but I would think that close to half (if not more) of Duke's rebounds came off tips or off the floor. I also thought Duke did a great job of guarding the paint without fouling. Considering how tightly the game was called, Duke did a good job of forcing tough shots over defenders without fouling ball handlers. In fact, a lot of the big guys fouls came on plays where they weren't defending a ball handler. This team has plenty of shortcomings on defense, but their improved discipline helped a lot. It did help that FSU is limited offensively, as the top offensive big guys in the country will make those shots. In fact, it's happened to Duke a lot this year (see Robinson, Sullinger, Zeller, and Reggie Johnson), but you just have to force the tougher shot and try to rebound once the entry pass is made. If they can grab 50-50 rebounds as well against other teams as they did today, those performances I mentioned earlier might not repeat themselves.
Before I address the officiating in a nit picky manner, one thing that was huge in this game was Snaer picking up 2 fouls early. He had 7 points in just 10 minutes in the first half, sitting out the entire last 10 minutes of that half when Duke built its lead. In the first 19 minutes of the second half, he was only able to match that total, before picking up a couple of garbage layups in the last minute. He could have had a much bigger impact and been in a better rhythm from 3. He made is only attempt before sitting in the first half and went just 1 for 5 in the second half.
It certainly wasn't a greatly officiated game, but it might not been quite as bad as it looked. I think most of it can be put on TV Teddy. He seemed to be calling a much tighter game than the other guys, and when one guy is calling it tighter than the others, he kind of takes over because when 1 of 2 refs thinks it's a foul, it's a foul. The blatant calls that they missed were the Rivers trip and the Rivers play heading out of bounds (though the ref, not Teddy, didn't have a great look at their arms, which is where the foul happened. The other really bad call was giving the FSU guy an and one on Miles fourth or fifth. In general, Duke got a lot of silly fouls on big men, while FSU got them on perimeter guys. One that went Duke's way was the non-call on Mason for his fourth with 12 or 13 minutes left. There was mutual contact getting to the spot at the same time and that should be a defensive foul. There were certainly a lot of other questionable calls, but not many that a significant percentage of refs wouldn't make.
Tough, tough win at a tough place to play. I can't believe how bad Valentine is. If any of you have the game DVR'd, check out the loose ball along the sideline when Thornton gets called for the foul. Valentine is watching the ball roll along the side to see if it rolls out of bounds. He is not even looking when the contact occurs. Complete & total guess that he got wrong.
I don't know who grades the ACC officials, but Hess & Valentine must have compromising pictures of them. No other explanation as to why they still have jobs.
Does anyone else feel like I do right now? I had great anticipation heading into this game, felt tense all afternoon and was wired all game long. I thought this team went into a fight and stuck its chin right in the middle of all that, took the big punches and won.
This is a big win for this particular team. We exorcised demons from FSU game 1. We stepped up on the road, against the refs, against a roster of athletes and played tough.
I think we're a lot better than we were a month ago. I think we have established roles, cut down of execution-type mistakes and are talking and rotating better on defense. We have done the things no one thought we'd do. If this trend continues, we're going to beat some good teams going forward.
Super "Cajones" Dave
and it was a tough, gritty win. Our guys did us proud - 40 minutes of intense focus and effort.
And FSU's defense is no joke - but we got great shots against it. Kudos to everyone.
Also, big props to Miles, Mason, and Ryan for playing with foul trouble the whole second half. Very mature play.
Just a great win
Although he definitely appeared to have the ankle rolled on during the attempt to get the ball, it seemed to me that he was in pain because he hit his shin on the side of the table just off the court. That is the kind of injury that hurts like crazy for a minute or two and then fades pretty quickly. (Also why soccer players wear shin guards...) This would explain (beyond his toughness) why he didn't appear bothered by his ankle afterwards.
Anyone see it differently or have an update from AR or the team on exactly what happened?
I thought FSU was imbounding on that play. I really don't know about that rule, and If its the play I'm thinking of, there was a lot of room between the defender and the inbounder (though much of that space was the inbounder moving back off the end line), but I really don't know how that rule works.
Gutty effort tonight and FSU IMHO made a HUGE mistake by not feeding the post early/often in the 2nd half allowed the Plumlees and Kelly to stay in the game.