They beat us on the boards. The stat sheet says not by a whole lot, but that's where we get our margin of error and overcome our offensive shortcoming. We did not get second chance opportunities as we often have had.
Also, there is a lot of criticism of the officiating, and I for one agree that it was pretty sub-par, but that's not the reason why we lost. We got badly exposed on the offensive end by their ball pressure, so credit to them. We lost a good handful of possessions off of bad turnovers.
5 thoughts…
1. The mantra was limit turnovers, control the boards, focus on defense and limit turnovers (for emphasis). I think it’s fair to say UT was better on all accounts. Hats off to the Vols, they won a very physical game. They played tough ball, and Duke wasn’t able to compete. They will be a tough out moving forward.
2. I’ll say it again. Turnovers…
3. I was really proud of Proctor for keeping them in the game offensively in the 2nd. It just wasn’t enough. I kept hoping Whitehead would show up, but he vanished in the 2nd. In his defense, I didn’t see Duke doing anything to get him open. But the Vols clearly knew to get physical with Flip. He did his best, but it kind of was like men against boys.
4. The zone helped a bit at first. But once the Vols got used to it, they took advantage again. Good adjustment by Barnes to go to Nkamhoua. He took them home.
5. Lively was very good on defense, but on the O side I would have liked to see him fight for more boards. UT made it tough. And I understand him not scoring, UT’s interior defense was so solid… Injuries are part of the game. But I think Mitchell would have helped greatly. Not sure if Duke would have won, but I think it might have been different. His length and toughness was missed defenively. I liked Grandison this year for what he was, but he wasn't Mitchell.
9F
I will never talk about That Game. GTHC.
They've had almost 3 weeks to learn to play without Ziegler. This was literally our first game the entire season without Mark Mitchell. He's the 2nd best defender on the team and he might have made a big difference against Nkhamuoa in the 2nd half. He's also the guy who comes up with clutch rebounds and loose balls, something else we sorely lacked in this loss.
I’m so sad that I will never see this version of the Blue Devils again. I really enjoyed watching this team grow this season. Thanks to all the players and coaches!
Such a sad way to end this season. I became very attached to this team and these players. They were such a close-knit and likable group.
Such unfortunate timing with Mitchell’s injury. I think he was one of the few who hadn’t missed a game all season. Reminds me of other seasons with bad injury luck.
Jon’s first season has to be considered a resounding success. ACC tournament champs! And we improved so much during the season and appeared to be peaking at the right time.
I was surprised we weren’t more prepared for their physicality. I thought maybe Jai Lucas would help there, since he was used to playing them every year.
I really hate these games that are more like football. Add to that the inconsistent officiating - we were called for touch fouls; they were allowed to draw blood with no calls. And so many borderline flagrants by them. We were just unable to adjust to their physical style coupled with the uneven officiating.
And we really had no depth today with Mitchell’s injury. I know we all loved Jon’s deep bench early in the season. But as the quality of the competition increased, it was obvious our bench was not going to be much help.
Great season! Sad for our team right now.
Then Duke had no shot, and I don't buy that argument. You have to play different styles in the tournament and adjust your game. That's why it's so difficult to win a title.
Duke has plenty of big guys who can go hard for the ball, but for whatever reason they couldn't get it done. It's a great learning opportunity moving forward for the players and the staff.
Every time I like our bracket draw...we lose. Every. Single. Time.
My streaming went down with about five minutes left in the game, so I didn't get to see the bitter end.
Fantastic team, though, and a wonderful season. Two wins over the Cheats. ACC champs.
The last that hurts the most is that if we had somehow been able to survive this game, we might have even been able to make a run all the way to the Final Four. I was so looking forward to playing a Cinderella in MSG. Oh, well.
Congrats to the boys, anyway, for entertaining us all year long and for developing over the course of the year. Glad I am not Flip's insurance company. Sheesh. He's been a punching bag all season long. He may decide to go pro just because he's tired of being beat the hell up all the time. You can't get away with that stuff in the NBA.
Not that Duke was going to win it all this season, but every team has a bad matchup in the field and you hope your team doesn't run into that along the way. That happened today compounded with them playing the offensive game of their lives. That is the bracket nightmare. Now I have to pick a consolation team to pull for. Gonzaga?
Their ball pressure was good because they were getting away with significant contact on every possession. Roach got called for a travel on a play where he clearly got hit 3 times by two different players. Wonder if that impacted the turnover numbers. I could go on.
Can the ref apologists give it a rest for like 10 minutes?