MBB: Duke 67, Maryland 61 (ACC Tournament) Post-Game Thread

[Bob Green]

Post your game thoughts here.

[hurleyfor3]

OK... on to the championship game with FSU. Wasn't sure this game was going to get out of the 50s until the free-throw shooting started.

[Son of Mojo]

Hard fought game--needed better defensive stops in those last two minutes. Step it up one more game & win the title. McClure & Smith stepped up big today as well.

[sandinmyshoes]

I'm getting too old for this.

[FerryFor50]

Physical game. Good defense on both sides, save for the last stretch by Hayes.

Poor shooting by most of the team. McClure was the savior.

[TaiAdmiral]

Solid SOLID SOLID game by Scheyer. And what's even better, our free throws were outstanding.

[dukebsbll14]

Good win. Lets get rested and ready for FSU tomorrow; going to be a very good game I presume.

GO DUKE!!!

[pamtar]

A very good win, although I have to give some credit to our seeding. Great job of shutting down Vasquez in the second half. Great job by Dave and Jon on O and Kyle and Nolan on D. Look out Noles! An ACC tourney win would be very sweet! LGD!

[DukieInBrasil]

on to the ACC Finals!!! We can beat the Noles!!! We´re gonna have to start to doing a better job of hitting the front end of our FT sessions in pressure situations tho´. We missed two in a row on the front of 2 shots late.
Great game Jon!!! Nice to see Nolan coming along. He was pretty quiet against BC but seemed a bit more assertive tonight...he may have even gotten the starting gig back, seeing as how EWill is not taking anyone by surprise anymore.

[miramar]

1) As the Crazies said to Dave McClure on Senior Night, "Five more years!"

2) The free throw shooting improved in this game, which was good to see.

3) FSU will be a really tough game, but I am delighted they knocked off Carolina.

[cruxer]

Great win when our offense wasn't clicking on all cylinders. I thought we looked particularly uncomfortable in our end-of-game set where we spread the floor and run clock. That surprised me a bit since we've run that set well this year.

Hayes was pretty incredible at the end for the Terps and hit several tough shots while being fairly well defended. He's the only reason the final was within 10 pts.

Overall, it's one-and-done, so survive and advance! Look forward to tomorrow when we'll have to beat another very good team for a third time to when the championship. If we cut down the nets, we'll have damn well earned it!

-c

[DankeShane]

I don't know if this showed on the ESPN feed, but on Raycom at the end when Nolan Smith was shooting those FTs, it looked like some Maryland fans behind the Duke bench were heckling him quite a bit. After Smith made the FT Coach K turned around and it looked like he gave those idiot terp fans a nice verbal smackdown of some sort.

Anyways, that might have been my favorite part of the game.

[chrisheery]

Last year, in a game that physical when the refs were not calling normal fouls, Duke would have lost that game.

This year, we have found a way to stay in games like this until we can get free and play better. That is a nice development.

Nolan is almost back to being himself. I thought he played great.

The defense seems to be back to previous level. Really helping well and tipping balls. Today, we didn't secure them well, but if we had hung on to a few in the first half and converted on the other end, this might have been a blowout.

Things that need to improve:

We need to do a better job rebounding the ball. Specifically, boxing out the guys crashing from the outside and hanging onto the ball when it comes our way.

Push the ball when a team presses or when we get a rebound.

E Will should take those shots or he can't play in big games.

Paulus might have been valuable playing more off the ball. He made a big three in his limited minutes and missed a layup he should have made. He also played well on defense and provided a huge spark.

[Jumbo]

Once again, it wasn't a thing of beauty (except for the textbook fastbreak where McClure grabbed the rebound, tossed the outlet to Henderson who threw a great bounce pass to Scheyer for the layup), but Duke got it done.

Big props to Coach K for not forcing Elliot Williams out there in a game where he clearly was struggling, and instead going with Nolan Smith, who played very well. I was hoping to see more of Zoubek, but given the way the team is playing defense (so much better than the last few games of the regular season), maybe it's just not possible to use him and keep switching screens and helping the way we are.

Once again, it seemed like we tipped a lot of balls that went the wrong way. We need to grab rebounds, not just get a hand on the ball. We're playing very good defense -- just need to finish.

[mr. synellinden]

Maybe this deserves a separate thread, but someone needs to test him for a degenerative brain disease. I am serious. He constantly gets the score or the team or the player wrong and he can't seem to follow the score progression. I keep noticing it more and more, and it's extremely annoying watching him do a game. I could list about ten times that he made obvious mistakes, calling Maryland Florida St. at one point - ok, I understand he's doing two games, but at least realize it and correct it. One time Vasquez drove and he said it was Tucker. During the end of the game he kept getting the score and point spread wrong. It's like a drunk Harry Caray at this point. ESPN needs to give him a vacation.

[InSpades]

Great defensive effort. To win a game when Kyle+Gerald go 6 for 26 combined from the floor is something that never would have happened without an inspired effort on the other end of the floor.

Welcome back Nolan! We missed you. An even better game from him today. He's a nice compliment to Elliot, he provides some of the same defensive intensity but is a much better scorer/shooter.

McClure was his usual awesome self. We will miss him a lot next year (and every year after that).

Let's have a good shooting game tomorrow!

[BlueintheFace]

Ugly UGLY win, but it is march so every win is beautiful.

1) Greg Paulus in the first half and Dave McClure in the second half were awesome. Both made big plays on both ends of the floor that really ignited the team. They brought what we really needed.

2) G had trouble getting in to the game and hitting shots. He really needed to get to the rim more and draw contact, but MD's occasional sagging defense stopped him from doing so.

3) That same sagging defense rendered E-will ineffective on the perimeter exposing his inability to hit the three while taking away the drive.

4) Nolan looked better and had some solid plays on both ends. He still is having trouble with stupid fouls, but it wasn't that bad.

5) Jon played great and definitely has his shooting touch working.

6) Kyle's first half was good, but it seemed as though we stopped running things for him in the second half like we did in the first, so his only big plays on offense were on the boards. That last rebound was very nice.

7) Did I mention that Dave is awesome? He is.

[rthomas]

I could list about ten times that he made obvious mistakes, calling Maryland Florida St. at one point

At one point early in the game Patrick called us Noth Carolina and I threw up a liitle bit inside my mouth. The dude needs to retire and so does Vitale.

[ChrisP]

That was one of the worst officiated games I have ever seen. Those 3 refs simply did NOT seem to know what a charge looks like. There were several in that game that were either called incorrectly or not at all. Granted, it was reasonably physical both ways (I thought our guys got away with some bumps on their cutters through the lane and some bumps on some shots) but that was just awful. Here's to hoping those 3 zebra-clad bozos do NOT make the final tomorrow.

It's not terping if you win, right?

[sagegrouse]

I was muttering that David was the key player for Duke BEFORE he scored those two buckets. When he came in, suddenly we started getting rebounds and grabbing loose balls. He made a big difference in the energy level of the Duke team.

sagegrouse