Duke has been on the right side of the karmic balance for two weeks now, so whatever they’re doing – they need to keep doing it.
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“I think he’s him, you know?”
And it will happen once more Sunday night in a big way when the Blue Devils (29-7) take on seventh-seeded SC (23-10) in a defacto home game for the Gamecocks, about two hours north of campus at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena and whose fans will snap up any available ticket.
Grayson Allen scored 21 points off of the bench for the Blue Devils, with four starters kicking in double-digits each, punctuated by Jayson Tatum’s 18-point, 12-rebound double-double.
“Through this process, I feel I’ve witnessed a remarkable, remarkable, group of young ladies”, he said.
We haven’t seen any of that otherworldly stuff from Duke this season, at least not consistently. C Luke Fischer, who started 25 games, G Haanif Cheatham, (25 starts) and G Jajuan Johnson (24 starts) all came off the bench.
So the term “Duke Wins”, Matt.
It was South Carolina’s first NCAA Tournament victory in 44 years and pushed the Gamecocks into Sunday’s second round against No. 2 seed Duke, with the victor advancing to the Sweet 16. We would have liked to have made a better showing, but it wasn’t in the cards tonight. Varnado said the players came out sluggish and could not fight their way out of it.
Allen has lived a life in a fishbowl for more than a year now, thanks in part to his own actions and with a reasonable amount of blame to networks’ split-screen technology and pregame talking-head panels.
“I’ve never experience an injury like this in the NCAA tournament”, McCallie said.
“It was a good start to the tournament, and (I’m) excited to get back here on Sunday”, said Brent Coiner, a Duke fan. According to an old Chicago Tribune article, a crowd of 5,500 attended the game, with many of them getting in free. “It’s a blessing to be able to play in front of our fans”. We’ve still got to play the game.
To translate: Jones was being too kind.
“Last year, our men’s coach, Edward Joyner speed dialed Jesus before they played Kentucky”. The Ducks are even better, ranking second at 39.6 percent. And spare me the whining about injuries.
This defensive effort is yet another showcase of the versatility that Tatum possesses, which could go a long way when it comes to his NBA Draft status later this year. He made the trey, and as he landed back on the floor and as the Duke crowd cheered to shield the boos, Troy’s Wesley Person had fallen at Allen’s feet near his landing spot.
I’m sure I missed several other aches and pains for Duke, but that’s irrelevant compared to this: Coach K, those Super Frosh, Allen, Jeter. “It’ll be a home game for them”. The games were moved after the NCAA chose to pull events from the state of North Carolina. All of that sounds wonderful, but here’s the rest of the story.
“We did a lot of good things”, Blue Devils coach Joanne P. McSally understated. As a team, Duke is scoring 80.8 points per game on 47.7% shooting from the field, 37.9% from behind the arc and 75.6% from the foul line this season.
Duke was the opposite in this one.
That was about the only thing that went wrong for Duke (28-5) early on, though. “Guys weren’t talking on the defensive end and we really paid attention to that in the second half”.
The arena had plenty of Duke fans, who liked what they saw as the second-seeded Blue Devils put away 15th-seed Troy.
Jefferson added, “That’s something that has to be our mantra”.
Duke established itself as a tournament mainstay through the past two decades, earning berths every year from 1995-2015 and advancing to four Final Fours before a rare down year in 2015-16 ended that streak.
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The Blue Devils carried that momentum right into singles play, winning first sets on five of the six courts.
