Beating Duke is extra sweet and we beat them at big moments the last 27 years. I hope everyone had fun celebrating the win and feeling happiness for our players and coaches on their well deserved win.
Down by 19 at one point and going 1-18 from 3pts are what obituaries are all about. Yet, somehow we embarrassed Charles Barkley after he made his Duke is a better team halftime comments. The 1-18 threes turned into 4-5 threes the second half, including the biggest shot of all with less than a couple seconds left by Mr Mullins.
Reed kept us in the game early when no one else did. For the game he scored 26 points and captured 9 rebounds and battled a Duke team that had a length advantage at multiple positions. They did have a 34 to 28 rebound advantage but we block a couple more shots and had 3 more steals. In the first half and early second half a good case was made about the importance of a Double Big rotation option as Duke took advantage of their size.
During the game we shot 56% from 2 pts and only 23% from 3 points. Yet, our comeback featured 4 late threes from Demary, Karaban and Mullins. Ironically, because Mullins had no other option than to shoot given a couple seconds left and Karaban passing the ball back to him - it may have taken the pressure off him and it was a calm perfect form 3 point shot that looked beautiful leaving his hands.
An unsung hero again was Smith who scored 10 points and had zero turnovers while he ran the team and played tough defense. He played 30 minutes compared to Demary’s 23 minutes due to injury. But Demary did hit 2 key three point shots late in our comeback and ended with 11 points and 5 tough rebounds. Ball missed threes (0-5) but otherwise played tough.
The Boozer brothers combined for 42 of Duke’s 72 points or 58% of their points. Despite that Reibe had a quiet 7 minutes. He did not look bad but also did not give us a lot of production again (1– 1 FG and 1 rebound). Tournament game minutes are inherently going to be more about production than regular season rotations in the win or go home post season World.
On to Indy and Mullins Homecoming but we can’t get too distracted by that. Today proved how winnable the F4 can be for us. At the end of the day it is our toughness and mindset that win games for us and today was proof of that.
Down by 19 at one point and going 1-18 from 3pts are what obituaries are all about. Yet, somehow we embarrassed Charles Barkley after he made his Duke is a better team halftime comments. The 1-18 threes turned into 4-5 threes the second half, including the biggest shot of all with less than a couple seconds left by Mr Mullins.
Reed kept us in the game early when no one else did. For the game he scored 26 points and captured 9 rebounds and battled a Duke team that had a length advantage at multiple positions. They did have a 34 to 28 rebound advantage but we block a couple more shots and had 3 more steals. In the first half and early second half a good case was made about the importance of a Double Big rotation option as Duke took advantage of their size.
During the game we shot 56% from 2 pts and only 23% from 3 points. Yet, our comeback featured 4 late threes from Demary, Karaban and Mullins. Ironically, because Mullins had no other option than to shoot given a couple seconds left and Karaban passing the ball back to him - it may have taken the pressure off him and it was a calm perfect form 3 point shot that looked beautiful leaving his hands.
An unsung hero again was Smith who scored 10 points and had zero turnovers while he ran the team and played tough defense. He played 30 minutes compared to Demary’s 23 minutes due to injury. But Demary did hit 2 key three point shots late in our comeback and ended with 11 points and 5 tough rebounds. Ball missed threes (0-5) but otherwise played tough.
The Boozer brothers combined for 42 of Duke’s 72 points or 58% of their points. Despite that Reibe had a quiet 7 minutes. He did not look bad but also did not give us a lot of production again (1– 1 FG and 1 rebound). Tournament game minutes are inherently going to be more about production than regular season rotations in the win or go home post season World.
On to Indy and Mullins Homecoming but we can’t get too distracted by that. Today proved how winnable the F4 can be for us. At the end of the day it is our toughness and mindset that win games for us and today was proof of that.
