MBB: Duke 61, Virginia 58, Post-Game Thread

[duke09hms]

Give him a break...Looked to me that he thought UVA was either going to foul him or move on down the court...UVA just kinda loosely guarded him for a few seconds and he took off. Duke was across the time line when K called the TO...close but he was across the mid line.

Dre covered up then passed to Seth who had to sprint to barely cross half-court - is what happened

[greybeard]

1. Both teams were very, very tired the last 10, maybe 7 minutes.

2. The second half, the difference was the way Duke played through Mason. They got it to him inside the defense, in a variety of spots, often on the move, often requiring exceptionable catches and he and he mentally and physically wore out and demoralized UVa's much taller center who did a great job of preventing the ball from coming inside. UVa outside defenders had to stay inside to help on Mason and Duke got some open three looks. INSIDE OUT PLAY. CREDIT K, BIG TIME! Look, it is not easy denying Duke's perimeter guys decent looks, which is what UVa did almost all the time the first half. So K went to a double low post, had some screens for Mason to role over, had guys curling from behind him forcing the big to show.

3. The UVa defenders gave Duke's outside players fits the first half but had to expend a tremendous amount of effort doing it. Curry, Rivers, Cook, Dawkins, even Tyler came off those screens hard with the ball all without it. BODY PUNCHES. They continued to throw them the second half, only this time their first, second and third option was to get it to Mason. They did and he did not disappoint. Finese, great moves (decisions and excecution), great receptions, very, very heavy lifting. Mason's heavy lifting on offense and trying to defend the insane guy on UVa left him less than he would otherwise have been on the defensive board. The quick feet positions, real explosion was not there. Who can fault him?

4. I thought that Miles played great on both ends. The second screen call was real bad (no harm no foul, he and the defender barely touched), at least one of his defensive fouls, a reach around on Scott in the post was another ticky-tack call, and even the first screen, which was an obvious step in, did not affect play. Incidently, the number of moving screens UVa made in close quarter maneuvers that weren't called (maybe they weren't seen, but there was one possession in the last few minutes on the left side of the court when there seemed to me to have been at least three. The refs seemed content to let the guys played and it was not a rough game. I don't see two or maybe three of the fouls on Miles as appropriate. Nevertheless, refs did a good job.

5. Ryan played really good D the second half, and the guards for Duke did as well. The Duke guards manned up equal to what they had been receiving from UVa the first half. I loved UVa's motion offense, that produced good looks. However, the pressure that Duke's guards put on UVas on both sides of the court was relentless, especially the second half, and I think that UVa and especially that kid Vitale was always talking about had no legs before the first half ended.

6. Duke really made Scott work in the second half, especially when they went double low with Ryan. Whether Ryan made or missed (boy, could I show him a few things that would have helped avoid those misses), Scott was working hard, close to the basket, trying to keep Ryan from going where he wanted, fighting to contest, needing to fight on the defensive boards. I think that is why we saw a lull in his game. When Miles picked up those fouls, and Mason and Ryan's legs started going, Scott became somewhat effective again but he was no longer the dangerous guy he was the first half--he did not have it as a go-to guy down the stretch.

Bottom line, Duke was forced to play UVa's game, only with UVa's exterior defenders putting so much pressure on the ball so far from the basket, and their bigs showing on screens, etc, pass penetration and one-on-one play was available to Mason, as long as they found a way to get him the ball. The big for UVa was real long and did a great job of denying Mason a passing lane in the first half. The second half Mason was on the move much more often, when he caught it, if the big came out to try to close guard, Mason either blew past or moved on the lateral bounce like a Rugby player in a scrum. He killed the guy. Give this one to K for a terrific second half offensive strategy that really worked. By the way, Duke did a reasonably good job due to some kind of adjustment a half time in impeding those little dishes to diving bigs when Mason, Ryan, or Miles tried to help. I didn't pick up what it was, and at one point K called a time out when a few of those dive plays happened again, and they seemed to stop, except on the offensive board (but see above and Mason's tired legs).

Finally, I thought that Mason and Miles were asked to and did make athletic plays (catches on offense) and that Duke ran sets they were designed to present them with passes that allowed some room to maneuver. Without that, I think Duke would have lost by 10. It kills me when the heads are so surprised that once Miles was in the flow of the game they would express surprise that the guy made an 16 footer. The guy is a ballplayer; get him involved, he'll score the ball, and he certainly has the talent to hit open 16 footers well over 50 percent of the time, in my opinion.

Two other things. I thought Ryan was the first to get really tired, and I really think that his looking to the bench so he can relay the set called by K slows the game down and is counterproductive. I would like to know from you guys who will undoubtedly watching this thing several times whether my sense is right, or those called sets resulted in scores. I would have liked rather to see Ryan in those moments, they almost always occurred when he was on the foul line, to get the ball and threaten the defense. In a similar vein, I don't like it when Mason points to someone whom he thinks the guy with the ball should throw it to. I don't mind a look with his eyes, but I'd rather see him step to the ball, let the outside player throw it up for Mason to go and get it out in front on the defender, and then Mason, with the defense listing back in towards him, making the pass to the guy who he wanted to receive the ball. A quick one-touch play that makes UVa's defense VULNERABLE--UVa in that moment is dictating nothing; rather it is entirely the other way around. Duke did have lots of plays that had that effect the second half, Ryan and Mason can and should give them more, in my view.

I liked very much that Duke looked for mid range shots and made them, I thought that the floaters hit by Curry and Rivers were spectacular, that Tyler's drive/score and wonderful pass to Miles were great plays and momentum, that Cook's MOVE was a real important STAND-THEM-UP shot when UVa didn't to get hit hard so they knew that Duke's guards were there to play. Everybody contributed. If Duke plays these guys again, I think that they win by 15.

Oh, they do need me to fly down and to work with Mason on little mini foul shots around the basket, all different kinds, with different trajectories, different spins, different placement and tension of the fingers, ditto for feet, depth of knee bend and relation to arm movement (energitically and timing), having the energy cause by the feet pushing into the ground transmit up through the spine and having the upward energy created by the left foot push resulting in the right shoulder blade's moving up and slightly out and thus automatically the lengthing of the shooting arm (if you are relaxed, your belly soft, your jaw, eyes and ribs are soft, that right shoulder will ride up and out smoothly--everything about the shot improves). The thing is that you experiment, doing the opposite of what you just tried, trying a variety of combinations (it's best if you have someone like me who can put some reason behind the sequence, to force differentiation of body parts that normally move as one, and sychronicity of parts that often work in opposition, who is both explored shooting development by similar means when I was much younger and have the benefit of my study of my man's Method--maybe one of my Hewlett boyz who are tight with K would be willing to suggest it to him (not a chance).

Championships are great, they drive everyone, I think the fans probably more than the players. These guys left it out on the floor tonight; they won. If games like this are not as good as it gets, if you think that players would give an ounce more than they gave tonight if the game for all the marbles, I think that you are missing the glory, the joy of college sport. I had a blast, and am glad that Duke won!

[Swardy]

UVA slows everyone down and tries to get ugly low scoring wins. It didnt work today for them and we should be happy with the win. You can complain about the rebounding and Mason's Shaq impersonation from the FT line but if he even makes 50% we dont sweat out this W. UVA is a good team and we got the win!

[Greg_Newton]

1.2. The second half, the difference was the way Duke played through Mason. They got it to him inside the defense, in a variety of spots, often on the move, often requiring exceptionable catches and he and he mentally and physically wore out and demoralized UVa's much taller center who did a great job of preventing the ball from coming inside. UVa outside defenders had to stay inside to help on Mason and Duke got some open three looks. INSIDE OUT PLAY. CREDIT K, BIG TIME! Look, it is not easy denying Duke's perimeter guys decent looks, which is what UVa did almost all the time the first half. So K went to a double low post, had some screens for Mason to role over, had guys curling from behind him forcing the big to show.

I have no idea why we've gone away from this the past few games (until the second half); since the break, we've been almost exclusively running that atrocious 4-high set that results in the bigs either a) setting screens too far from the basket, b) getting the ball 25 feet from the hoop, or c) rolling for lobs that are never there. Setting a cross screen to get Mason isolated in the post has been our most consistent offensive play, IMO, and lets him set the tone for the rest of the time. Do it early and often and the perimeter game will follow.

BTW, what was going on with our scheme on Scott? We were having our guy force him baseline and bring the other big over to double/trap, but we forgot the most important part - having the weak-side wing rotate down low to cover the helping big's man. We gave them like 3 dunks doing that.

[Edouble]

BTW, what was going on with our scheme on Scott? We were having our guy force him baseline and bring the other big over to double/trap, but we forgot the most important part - having the weak-side wing rotate down low to cover the helping big's man. We gave them like 3 dunks doing that.

I noticed that too. Why is there no rotation? Is the man who doubles the baseline not really supposed to do that?!?! If he is supposed to, how can there be no rotation? I really don't understand that at all. How can there not be any help defense?

Overall, a great mid-January ACC game.

[Olympic Fan]

Just a few comments. I was at the game and look forward to watching the game on my DVR to see a couple of officiating calls/non-calls that looked bad to me in person -- specifially the no-call on the Scott follow that looked like a blatant GT to me in real time and the the Mason swat that was called goal-tend -- it looked like he hit the net when the ball was well below the rim. On Miles' two illegal screens, well, the first was a blatant call. No problem with that, he extended his leg to screen the trailing defender. But I didn't see him do anything wrong or on unusual on the other.

As for Andre tonight -- I agree with what K said afterwards: BY FAR his best defensive game at Duke. Did anybody notice that Sammy Zeglinski, Virginia's top perimeter shooter, was scoreless ... 0-6 from the field? Dawkins (and Rivers) had a lot to do with that. Harris had some success against him, but he was just 5-of-11 from the floor and only got to the line four times (twice when he was fouled on a scramble after Kelly's turnover).

And I don't recall any ballhandling issues Andre had against Virginia's pressure (one assist, no turnovers). Well, there was one -- late in the game, he came down with a tough rebound in traffic and caught a finger in the eye. He was unable to get rid of the ball for several seconds as the refs let the Virginia players continue to hack at him. Duke did have to call a timeout to prevent a 10-second call. I think the one people are complaining about came a couple of posessions later, when Andre caught the ball in the corner, thought he was fouled ... then dished to Austin, who was hammered (but no foul call). He got it to Curry who raced it over the line just before the 10-second count ... and just as K called a timeout. I didn't sense Andre doing anything wrong there.

Great game by both Plumlees, especially Mason, except for his FT shooting. But we know he can't shoot free throws. What hurt worse was Curry missing a FT when he ould have put Duke up 10, then Kelly missing two FTs late. He had hit 16 straight to that point over two gmes. Those two misses really made the ending tense.

Poor defensive rebounding in the second half. Interesting that problem would crop up at a time when Duke's defense was REALLY good for the first time all year. That's often a feature of Coach K's best defensive teams -- because they play ball-you-man (instead of the more passive stay-behind-your-man), they sometimes have problems rebounding.

Frustrating that Virginia was able to impose their tempo, but when you face a team that wants to play slow, there are only two ways to speed things up -- either press them into turnovers (which Duke is not capable of doing right now) or hit enough shots to build an early lead and force them to run to catch up. Duke missed its first seven 3s and spent the first half chasing the Hoos.

Yet, even with everything, Duke scored 61 points ... that's only the second time this year that a Virginia opponent topped 58.

BTW, did this game remind anybody else -- in terms of tempo, defensive intensity and dramatic finish -- of the national title game against Butler? Now, that game was played at a higher level, but this game seemed a lot like it.

[NYC Duke Fan]

Yes, a win against a ranked team is always good and at the end of the year when looking at the season you do not examine each game microscopically. At present though you do. This game was at home and easily could have gone into overtime.

If we played this type of game at UNC, Kentucky, Baylor or Syracuse, etc., we would get blown out...see the Ohio State Game. If we played them on a neutral court we would also lose as well if at Cameron..

Duke will have a successful season because we have the best coach who will get the most out of this team. That said, I am sure that I will get reamed for what I am going to say but I will say it anyway. This team is not a championship team. Can things change, surely, but as I see it we are not even a Final 8 team . One glaring weakness is that in a close tournament game we cannot have one of our best players on the court because he cannot make a FT, every team knows it and if by some chance he is on the court , he will be fouled incessantly. .

I am not trying to be a Debbie Downer just a Ralph Realist and that does not mean that it will not be enjoyable to watch this team play, because it will and there will be some very enjoyable moments this year I am sure.

[jv001]

This was a good win against a good team and good coach. Virginia will give everyone their best shot this year and will win some big games. I love their coach. He has his team playing hard and physical. Duke has a very talented team, but it's going to take one of Coach K's best coaching efforts to get this team where he, the team and us fans want it to be. GoDuke!

[jv001]

Andre made 3-7 FGs and was consistently losing his man on defense. He should get the credit for those 3 FGs, but his poor defense may outweigh those contributions.

It was good to see Andre hit some big shots in this game, but as you say he did have some bad plays on defense. He only had 1 rebound(29 mins) from the SF position and at 6'4" he was out rebounded by two shorter guards. Seth had 4 rebs and Tyler had 3 rebounds. I think Coach K is trying to get Andre's confidence back with the mins and the praise he gave him in post game comments. We need Andre to play at a high level for us to be a top 8 team. GoDuke!

[DukieInBrasil]

The lack of leadership on this team is astounding. After the GT games, it looks like the team thought they had found it in Ryan Kelly. He tried to dispel them of that notion as best he could, with basically 3 turnovers at the end of the game.
The complete lack of attention to defensive rebounding really astounded me. I clearly remember Kelly going for a blocked shot vs a guard (who had only gotten there b/c our guards are completely incapable of containing any backcourt anywhere) and MP II turned his back for position for the reb, but completely failed to notice that there was a UVa player running down the lane, who got the rebound for a putback slam.
I think K is going to have to design a new defense for this team b/c it just can't do what he's trying to get it to do now. Curry is not doing it, Cook isn't either (due to being a Fr.?), Thornton wants to be able to but can't stay in front of anybody and Rivers seems to be capable but hasn't mastered it yet.

[Saratoga2]

I'm with you, Duvall. After a lackluster first half, which I felt was us getting used to UVA's style and, sadly, letting them dictate the style of the game, we came out in the second and looked awesome for the first 10 minutes. Our defense was great and our inside out game was humming. I assume they made defensive adjustments to counter the inside game, I know they started to aggressively double - but even then Mason was able to find Seth for that 3 where Seth was wide open, kind of hesitated, and then nailed it. I am not sure what else they did to make us go away from that style, but I think it's our most effective style of play. At least it's the kind I like to watch. I felt like we were dying for some ballhandling at the end what with all the turnovers, and thought we might see Cook as he is a very good foul shooter. I guess not. When Bennett seemed to go with the Hack-a-Mason with 4 minutes left, I swore he'd keep going to it and am not sure why he didn't - it worked!

It was a really balanced effort tonight and would have been more of a statement win had we executed in the last 5 minutes. Still, the UVA team really impressed me and that is a high quality win. 2-0 in the ACC.

First let me say that after 16 games and the entire preseason, Mason still has a serious hitch in his free throw form and still has a flat trajectory. Why isn't he learning good form, bending knees, consistent smooth follow through, more arc. Anything would be worth trying but he seems to be stuck in Neverland. Where is the coaching?

I saw only the last 14 minutes of the game and was pleased to see some good play by Tyler providing a solid lead, but then we looked like a team without a lot of poise in the final minutes. We only had one freshman and one soph out there for those minutes, so it is hard to claim we were very young. In fact, it was Miles who had two moving screen plays, one of which stopped the clock and also which got him out of the game. I believe they were correctly called so perhaps he just didn't think.

Then I believe using Ryan as a type of point guard resulted in two turnovers. While we won the GT game largely due to Ryan's foul shooting, we do have ball handlers who are very decent foul shooters as well. Why not give the ball to Seth, Tyler or Quinn in that circumstance? We can give it back to Ryan, but not for dribbling with heavy defensive pressure on him. He has a decent handle, but has a quickness disadvantage.

What happened to our defensive rebounding fundamentals? We had size, but weren't boxing out and giving UVa multiple chances to score. If a team is shooting well against us, we are going down with that kind of effort.

Coach K liked Andre's effort defensively and there seems to be a difference of opinion on the board. I didn't see enough of that to form a strong opinion. How well did he rebound?

[jv001]

The lack of leadership on this team is astounding. After the GT games, it looks like the team thought they had found it in Ryan Kelly. He tried to dispel them of that notion as best he could, with basically 3 turnovers at the end of the game.
The complete lack of attention to defensive rebounding really astounded me. I clearly remember Kelly going for a blocked shot vs a guard (who had only gotten there b/c our guards are completely incapable of containing any backcourt anywhere) and MP II turned his back for position for the reb, but completely failed to notice that there was a UVa player running down the lane, who got the rebound for a putback slam.
I think K is going to have to design a new defense for this team b/c it just can't do what he's trying to get it to do now. Curry is not doing it, Cook isn't either (due to being a Fr.?), Thornton wants to be able to but can't stay in front of anybody and Rivers seems to be capable but hasn't mastered it yet.

I remember this play and looked at it again(dvr) because I wanted to see who was at fault for the put back. I'm pretty sure it was Austin who failed to block out that guy. He was the one at fault imho. I saw an improvement in the 2nd half from our guards in their on the ball defense. Tyler played better defense it seemed to me. Probably the reason Quinn saw little action in the 2nd half. It will be good to see tommy's break down. GoDuke!

[aro24]

Dawkins got beat several times on backdoors where his man scored. It made me wonder if it was done on purpose and the big men just weren't rotating back.

I played in a similar system where on defense you are told to deny the passing lanes on the wings...force your man to go backdoor. Getting beat means 2 things....1- you didn't see ball and man -> always have to have "ball-me-man" principal. 2- the post defender didn't rotate over and help.
Go back and watch some old clips of Battier, he was great at rotating over and taking the charge...perfect place for it, the offensive man is on a run and just getting the ball and you know he wants to go to the rim for a lay-up/dunk, all you have to do as a post player is anticipate the pass, rotate over and get in position to take the charge.
Great in principle but if the rotation is late or absent, it makes for a lot of open point blank looks or and-1's.

ARO24

[gumbomoop]

I remember this play and looked at it again(dvr) because I wanted to see who was at fault for the put back. I'm pretty sure it was Austin who failed to block out that guy.

Yep, Austin's big mistake on this one. He just watched the play. Because it was an impressive slam, it was shown a couple of times on replay. Austin was totally passive, no block out, no thinking [about how to play basketball....].

I'm always curious as to how exactly the staff uses film to teach. The mantra "next play" makes good sense, during the game. But using film for "teachable moments" does seem essential.

Speaking of which, I am still dismayed by Miles and Mason on high, too often moving, screens. I realize there's a difference of opinion re the calls on Miles late in the second half. But IMO, Mason has a tendency to stick out his elbow and hip, and Miles has itchy feet, and thus comes close to moving on some picks.

I'll never get a chance to see how the staff tries to coach this stuff. Wish I could. UVa's screens seemed more solid, better executed by the players. Bennett's really good.

Finally, the couple of times UVa got a key O-board on missed FTs had me saying unpleasant words. Hard to claim "Duke plays every play" if they don't. I'd prefer my team be more alert and aggressive. Much more, and consistently, relentlessly.

To be fair, and accurate, Duke's D was much improved this game, so there will be good D-plays to emphasize in film sessions, too.

[niveklaen]

The refs didn't call UVA's moving screens because we avoided the contact - no contact no foul called. Our players kept running further and further around the moving screens to avoid being run into by them. Every time Mile moved on a screen, the UVA guards, correctly, barreled into him forcing the refs to call the foul on him. By failing to run into UVA's moving screens we made them much more effective and kept them out of foul trouble.

[CDu]

It's a crazy game when you have five different players score at least 9 points and yet you only get 61 total points.

UVa is extremely well coached and Mike Scott is one of the best players in the conference for sure. Aside from that, I thought we had the next several best players. Sprinkle Joe Harris, Jontel Evans, and Sammie Zeglinski in there somewhere, but I'd say toward the lower tier. But Bennett gets them playing defense, and gets them playing at the tempo they want to play. Just a well-structured machine that overachieves.

Scott was a tough matchup for us coming in because he's quicker than any of our bigs. It looked like the strategy was to guard him with one big and have the other waiting for him on the block. Unfortunately, that strategy got burned several times when Scott either shot over his man who was late in getting to him or he found the other big for a dunk when the weakside guard didn't protect the lane.

On the other end of the floor, I thought Ryan Kelly was fantastic in the first half, creating some second chance opportunities and hitting some big shots. And then in the second half, Mason stepped up. It's a shame he can't hit free throws, because he could/should have had a 15-18 point night otherwise. He was just a beast for a large stretch when we pulled out in front.

Nice to see Dawkins hit some shots. He was due. I had a feeling that this would be a tough challenge for Rivers because UVa really protects the lane. I thought Rivers did a nice job overall of not getting frustrated and forcing it too much. And he hit some big shots too. Cook didn't have much of a night tonight. I don't think he was up to the challenge of guarding Evans, and he wasn't creating enough offensively (though he had one really nice driving layup. Good effort from Thornton tonight. He had a couple of nice buckets and one terrific 3/4 court pass to Miles for a dunk.

Loved the two monster Plumlee dunks. That was fantastic. I jumped off my couch on both plays.

A win is a win. It wasn't pretty, but UVa tends to make the game not pretty. Just glad to keep our ACC record clean. Onward to Clemson.

[roywhite]

Already mentioned, I believe, but this game reminded me so much of the 2010 final vs Butler. Even the score was very similar and the intensity of the game appeared to wear down both teams toward the end.

The natural reaction from both the Butler game and this game is...dang, we almost lost this; what if that guy had hit the last shot?; we missed some chances to nail this down, etc.
However, once that first reaction passes, the game can be seen in a different, more positive light about the things that worked and went well. Our play for most of the second half was very good; we made defensive adjustments, we got the ball inside and scored; we had outside shots that went down, and played with intensity against a tough opponent. Yep, it was a good win.

[COYS]

Virginia is the #26 team in the nation according to KenPom. That's not a team we can ever take lightly. Temple is 43rd, for example. They play a style that easily frustrates opponents and they stick to their game plan no matter what. Yes, it was closer than it needed to be and no it wasn't a dominating performance, but for all the talk about how close we were to a loss, we were equally close to a double digit win. And 3 points in a game with so few possessions is worth quite a bit. Seth missed two open threes in the closing minutes that would have put the game out of reach even given Ryan's turnovers at the end of the game. Ryan rarely misses two free throws in a row. Seth missed the front end of a 1 and 1 earlier. And there were some odd officiating moments at the end. I am not saying that the officials almost cost us the game or anything, but we definitely should have had at least two more trips to the line than we actually got. Yet, the team still did enough to win and was very close to putting Virginia away.

I actually thought there were some encouraging developments in this game. First of all, we reestablished Mason in the post, where he was flat out dominant in the second half. We coulda/shoulda gone to him more, in my opinion. On a night when we only hit 25% of our threes in 20 attempts, we still shot over 50% from the field as a team. A big part of that was Mason getting us easy buckets in the post. We need him to do that, especially against tough defenses like Virginia's that try to crowd out our three point shooters. Plus, we showed flashes of what we are capable of on the defensive end of the ball when we work well as a team. Some have mentioned the ugly rotations after a baseline double team on Scott that led to some easy jams for Virginia. We also had a few of those where we rotated correctly and either forced the driving player to try a wild layup or throw the ball away to a rotating guard. It is a bit of a feast or famine defensive tactic in the sense that if we fail to rotate we give away an easy bucket, but when we do it right we can completely overwhelm the defense. We need those flashes of strong defensive play to become more consistent.

[DukieInBrasil]

The refs didn't call UVA's moving screens because we avoided the contact - no contact no foul called. Our players kept running further and further around the moving screens to avoid being run into by them. Every time Mile moved on a screen, the UVA guards, correctly, barreled into him forcing the refs to call the foul on him. By failing to run into UVA's moving screens we made them much more effective and kept them out of foul trouble.

Well, the counter to this is that our guards do not run the defenders into the screen, they give a nice comfortable 2 ft gap between the screener and their path, so if the screener wants to feel like they are doing what they are supposed to do (set a screen) they are compelled to move the extra two feet to close the gap that our guards have created by failing to use the screen correctly. This is what creates the moving screen fouls.

[greybeard]

I think that the timing in UVa's offense and the ball movement is impressive. Those dives for an open dunk off a fed from a baseline double came late, as the double was almost there. The cutter was rolling, I mean coming fast down the lane. The combination of the two, and not wanting to leave an open three in the corner were, I think, responsible for the catch and dunk being uncontested.

I really liked Duke's opting for inside the line jump shots, well inside the line, as a feature we rarely see. I think that part of the game makes pass penetration much easier--the ball gets to the receiver much faster and the passing lane options are more available. Great response to VA's tremendous outside pressure, runouts on the three balls.

Kelly was clearly without legs down the stretch. He is a terrific option against full court pressure of the sort UVa applied late in a close game. Had Miles not received what I think were ticky tack fouls that shouldn't have been called, Kelly would have been fresher and the turnovers we saw would never have happened. Also, the amount of energy that both teams expended was astounding. Notwithstanding the defensive pressure applied by both, I thought that both teams managed to retain their shape on offense (a soccer term used to describe defensive positioning), and that Duke's adjustments, especially second half adjustments were terrific.

Scott's offensive game is so effective, in my opinion because he catches it often inside the three line, in a spot where he will shoot it with even a lttle space. If a defender needs to stop that shot, and you are with 15 or so feet from the basket, you become much more dangerous. Credit Duke's defense the second half. Like I said, I think the defense on him and especially taking away the mid range catches or making them really contested tired him out and also took away his swagger. Great job; really unbelievable.

Dre's threes were from distance, they were delivered with ease when Duke clearly wanted to go to him, and got a cluster of what Duke loves and UVa loves to take away, and did. Dre also took it to the rim and drew a foul in a difficult circumstance. He stepped up like a pro (for real) when Duke needed it. Everyone of the Duke men made at least a few great offensive plays to score the ball against what we knew going in was an extremely good defense.

Curry was terrific on both ends (he did, however, take I think 2 very improvident early 3s). Rivers played within himself, had his "game" stymied early, and then found his way to make some terrific offensive plays. The bounce pass after Rivers got near the rim that asked for a difficult Mason catch was smashing. Rivers took his turn really hurting UVa in ways they didn't expect, and, at least it seemed to me, played smart throughout on offense, not turning it over trying to create what clearly wasn't there.

I really liked Ryan in the double low post. I thought he created several really good opportunities and caught it even more times down low which made Scott have to defend real hard. Ryan will make those shots the more he sees himself in that position during games. Great deployment by K. All the coaches had to have contributed big time in this game.