MBB: Duke 84, Gonzaga 81 Post-Game Thread

[rsvman]

Fantastic game! Felt like a Final Four game.
Maybe even more satisfying for me because I am a BYU fan, too, so I have a particular distaste for the Zags.

Need to shoot free throws better, but other than that I was very impressed with the team.

[weezie]

...Moore making a case for NPOY…

THIS!

I could hardly believe how good the defense was even when we were slipping a bit. Kept it close and locked. Just figure out the back doors please.

[uh_no]

Fantastic game and effort! Moore making a case for NPOY…

I thought it was a given Timme would win

[Tooold]

Great game by Duke against a really good team. Surprisingly, the Zags seem to lose their poise near the end. The cramping issues are troubling…we should have figured this out.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Great team effort. Everyone had some moments to work on but they all took turns stepping up and making huge plays. Mark showed a lot of composure on D. Roach was struggling to score but made some huge plays late. Wendell being Wendell. Paolo got us out to the fast start.

And the GOAT had the team prepared with a great plan.

[jipops]

Moore is the type of goto leader we haven’t had in a long, long time it seems. He stepped up huge with Paolo out.

[peloton]

Fantastic game and effort! Moore making a case for NPOY…

As (simply) fans of the program we're elated by how much of a better player Wendell is all around. Imagine for a moment how pleased Coach K and the staff are.

[UrinalCake]

The two key stretches of the game IMO were 1.) when Paolo, Moore and Williams all went out and we kept the deficit to 3 or 4 when it looked like Gonzaga could have broken it open, and 2.) Moore stealing the inbounds after a Roach jumper and going right at Holmgren for the foul and making two free throws. Those were huge. It's pretty unbelievable that we won given the poor shooting of Roach and Keels and the bench not providing much. A great win and so much potential still for this team.

Also Coach K will never get the credit he deserves because he has so many 5 star players, but that was a masterful coaching job. Blowing up the ball screens to keep Gonzaga off balance, using the full court press on the final possession to cause Gonzaga to expend all of the game clock... the man has still got it.

[ClemmonsDevil]

Williams played so smart. Only 1 bad foul whole game. Plus that block that got called a foul should have been Top Ten on Sports Center!

Doesn't Williams at least have Rudy Gobert potential if not higher?

[dukelion]

And some of y'all were worried about Mark dealing with Timme's "head shakes"...smh.

[DavidBenAkiva]

The two key stretches of the game IMO were 1.) when Paolo, Moore and Williams all went out and we kept the deficit to 3 or 4 when it looked like Gonzaga could have broken it open, and 2.) Moore stealing the inbounds after a Roach jumper and going right at Holmgren for the foul and making two free throws. Those were huge. It's pretty unbelievable that we won given the poor shooting of Roach and Keels and the bench not providing much. A great win and so much potential still for this team.

Also Coach K will never get the credit he deserves because he has so many 5 star players, but that was a masterful coaching job. Blowing up the ball screens to keep Gonzaga off balance, using the full court press on the final possession to cause Gonzaga to expend all of the game clock... the man has still got it.

I thought the bench played reasonably well. Theo was clutch in stretches and both he and Baker scored a little. Needed every bucket tonight.

[LasVegas]

All y’all that talked smack on Mark Williams earlier in the season…….

[Native]

Heavyweight bout. Wow.

This was a title fight. We’re going to see these guys again down the line, I imagine.

[ClemmonsDevil]

THIS!

I could hardly believe how good the defense was even when we were slipping a bit. Kept it close and locked. Just figure out the back doors please.

Exactly. Perfect post. The D was just absolutely heroic for about a 5-7 minute stretch when Duke was shorthanded.

[-jk]

This was a title fight. We’re going to see these guys again down the line, I imagine.

Hope so!

-jk

[LasVegas]

THIS!

I could hardly believe how good the defense was even when we were slipping a bit. Kept it close and locked. Just figure out the back doors please.

The back doors are a product of the defense this team is playing. You can’t pressure as much as they do and not give up a decent amount of back door cuts.

[jacone21]

What a great college basketball game! Coach K with the 3/4 court press at the end. He may end up being a pretty good coach.

[FerryFor50]

Huge win. Went into this with low expectations - was just hoping for a good showing and wanted a barometer of where the team is now.

Williams played his best game all season, which is bizarre, since he’s been the biggest guy in most of the games but wasn’t the biggest guy in this one but played great offense (with a sweet left hand hook), superb defense - not just shot blocking, but STRONG rebounds in traffic, deflections on passes, steals, help defense… and was even guarding Holmgren well on the perimeter!

Am real glad they didn’t call him for his 5th when he lowered his arms on a Timme fake with about a minute left and the Zags within 3 or 4.

Moore has shown to be the clear leader here and picked up the slack when Banchero cramped up.

Keels played great defense, but he and Roach were a mess on offense. At least Roach hit a huge layup late in the game.

Banchero - wow. Had he not started cramping up, Duke might have run away with this one. He was unstoppable. And his passing/court awareness was great.

The bench guys all contributed nicely. John had some sweet jump hooks over Timme and Baker knocked down some huge threes and played passable defense to buy some minutes. AJ looked a little lost, but that’s to be expected in a game like this, given his lack of playing time so far.

Most impressive to me was how well they defended the Zags; limiting the three ball and adjusting to the cuts. They gave up a few easy ones, but overall played tough and got a bunch of steals and blocks.

[Billy Dat]

While it wasn’t always pretty, what we saw tonight was a team ready to play and who fought like crazy all 40 minutes. We could have folded many times in the final 10 minutes but we somehow found a way, I have to go back and watch that final 5 because I can’t really remember how we did it.

Williams - incredible!
Moore - indispensable!
Paolo - unstoppable (first half)
Keels - indestructible!
Roach - unsinkable!
John - I can’t get past the made jump hooks!!!
K - undisputed!

[dukelifer]

Moore is the type of goto leader we haven’t had in a long, long time it seems. He stepped up huge with Paolo out.

Since Tre Jones 2 years ago?