Washington-
man, what a punk. he did, however, get into markie's head and an earlier poster noted that going forward, markie is going to have to keep his composure and i couldn't agree more about that. he's the captain, our leader, and for him to foul out is fool's gold.
we desperately need markie out there and he knows it.
i am sure there were words about this after the game, coach to markie.
dth.
I agree with all the positives in your post, but I don't agree with the comment about the ESPN commentary. I often mute the TV and listen to Bob Harris, but I didn't tonight. Although Mike Patrick and Len Elmore will not be mistakenly identified as Duke fans , I thought they did a reasonable job. They certainly called Deron Washington out for his truly ridiculous performance, and they kept saying that the Devils were tough and played well.
Do we really want another Dickie V or someone who does nothing but cheer for Duke as s/he announces...? I don't think so.
DukeDevilDeb
Here's what I loved about that officiating crew... when Nelson got whistled for the tech, the camera was on the Duke huddle, and didn't show the referee. I said to myself, "Karl Hess must have whistled him for a technical foul." And then they show the replay, and it was Hess on the quick whistle. And I chuckled.
Seriously though, Karl Hess has one of the shortest fuse of all referees, and is quick on the T - he was responsible for some of the ridiculous ones called on Ewing a few years ago. Not saying this one wasn't necessarily justified by what Nelson said, since I obviously have no idea what Nelson said. But with Hess on the whistle, it could have been anything.
Just be you. You is enough. - K, 4/5/10, 0:13.8 to play, 60-59 Duke.
You're all jealous hypocrites. - Titus on Laettner
You see those guys? Animals. They're animals. - SIU Coach Chris Lowery, on Duke
Forget the talent, a thugs a thug. I am glad our captain stood up to him.
What a great choice Coach K made by appointing him the sole captain.
We have real men on our team. I wish we could play Pitt again.
Paulus was engaging in the same stuff as Washington and some of the other VT guys - in particular, a couple of after-the-whistle mild shoves, plus "accidentally" backing into Washington when he was about to shoot free throws. Nelson got caught up in the back-and-forth, leading to the time he tried to dunk on 3 VT players (getting blocked), and eventually his T.
Just be you. You is enough. - K, 4/5/10, 0:13.8 to play, 60-59 Duke.
You're all jealous hypocrites. - Titus on Laettner
You see those guys? Animals. They're animals. - SIU Coach Chris Lowery, on Duke
Folks, I love the idea that everyone that entered the game for us hit at least 2 field goals (I had begun to have a bad habit of telling my 2 sons that every time LT shots would be a miss). I love the fact that we had 81 points spread between 9 players (even my 3rd grade son could tell me that was 9 per player). That is called "balance." Haven't seen this kind of balance in a while. It's special . . .
I thought this was one of Lance's best games all around in a Duke uniform. While on offense his finishing touch still needs some work at times, his movement is looking 1000 X more fluid than he did last year. I really thought while watching this game, by seasons end he might be the aggresive, athletic power forward Duke needs and has come to expect. The guy is making strides and I for one applaud him. With Zoubek out and probably out of game shape we will need his all around play around the basket sooner or later.
did Markie get ejected or was the T just his 5th foul? if he was ejected after all the dirty crap that washingthug tried and accomplished, that reffing crew really may have been the sorriest i have ever seen(ooh, 2 of the same ones who ejected GH for 'fighting' vs unc last season...)
First, I think that the Pitt game was the most valuable game we played this year. We learned that if we don't play hard and tough, we could lose. Second, I was happy to see that we could be beat upon, toughed out, and still respond in a positive way. Washington's game is to try to get you to go after him. We mostly resiisted, and played our own game. We won by ignoring his antics. I was very proud of our effort tongiht.
They showed his Dad a few times when he missed a freebie. His Dad will take him to the wood shed.
I'm surprised to see people defending the announcers. I thought Elmore treated us to some of the most obnoxious commentary I've heard this season, and I'm not one to usually complain about the announcers; for example, I heart Jay Bilas just the way he is. Elmore's constant subtle suggestions that Duke was getting the calls and constant defenses of calls that favored VT (things like, "yep, good call, an elbow by Thomas", "that [mugging] wasn't intentional by Washington", "good non-call on the goaltend for Paulus' shot because it was OBVIOUSLY going to fall short... no really, it was OBVIOUS") really rankled me.
In the first half of the first half, Washington "walked through" Greg (didn't push, didn't shove, just walked through him), and Greg gave him a healthy elbow for no reason other than to be punkish.
I certainly think Washington showed his true colors tonight, but Duke didn't do the best job of rising above all the crap going on.
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Anyway, as far as the rest of the game, a really gutty win for our guys and, has been said, it's hard to point out one single person who was behind this one. Everyone stayed mentally in it (for the most part) and didn't allow Virginia Tech to muscle their way to a win.
Washington is a textbook dirty player. I bristle at using that definition usually, but if the shoe fits...
It disturbs me to see a coach like Seth Greenberg allow a player like that out on the court on a regular basis. There's no excuse for his repeated dirty play, but for whatever reason, Greenberg has no desire to hold him accountable.
As far as the officiating goes, I will just say that anyone who has any experience in blowing the whistle knows that this is, hands down, the hardest type of game to officiate. Two teams who are determined to pound and pound and pound eachother until one team breaks...and the officials' job is to, first and foremost, keep players safe, and second, make sure the game is fair. I tip my hat to this officiating crew for doing a good job of making sure this one didn't turn into a junkyard brawl. In this type of game, it's extremely difficult to stay consistent with every single calls, and I think the crew did an excellent job considering the circumstances.
As far as Karl Hess goes, I've never understood the irrational beating he takes on this board because he's called several technicals on our guys and our Coach over the years. Only a few players and maybe a few fans are privy to what gets said on the court 95% of the time and I will tell you that officials are pretty consistent with how the dole out technical fouls for mouthing off. DeMarcus knew better, and whether it was Karl Hess or not, I wasn't surprised that he got T'ed up. In fact, if I were him, I would've considered it "worth it," the way the game was going and considering that we were in complete control at that point.
That being said, there were definitely several misses tonight by the officiating crew, the goaltending "no-call" in the second half being the most glaring error. Every angle I saw, the ball looked like it would have at least hit the rim, if not gone in. I'm still scratching my head, though, at what the officials were doing checking the courtside monitor after that play, as TV review is not allowed for checking goaltending. Oh well.
As I said, good, gutty win for our guys. We were supposed to win this game, but the way we won it is definitely another notch in our belt.
Go Duke.
Anyhow, besides Elmore being an idiot, my impression was that Duke played really well. Even in the first half, I thought Duke played well -- moved the ball excellent, a bit shaky on defense -- but VT hustled their butts off and played over their heads offensively to keep it in close. In the second half, VT came back down to earth, and Duke pulled away as they should have against an opponent that didn't really match up well. Singler got my MOTM vote for his second-half burst that gave Duke a working margin, which Duke then worked to extend slowly.
heart check #1: we passed (high marks in fact)
heart check #2 on sunday.