Duke Runs Away From Hokies, 69-44
The funniest part of the game against Virginia Tech was how long people lingered in the concourses to watch Boston College take down UNC in Chapel Hill. But once that was over, the game in Cameron proved to be pretty entertaining as well.
Duke got out of the gate quick, and Virginia Tech looked a bit intimidated in the opening minutes as the Devils rushed out to an 11-2 lead. In the first few minutes in particular, Brian Zoubek was terrific, and Virginia Tech had trouble countering him. But after that, it turned into a very physical game, and when it gets there, it’s pretty much to Tech’s advantage, and at halftime, Duke’s lead was six, and Tech was clearly playing with more confidence. Duke saw Zoubek and Lance Thomas each saddled with three fouls, which made things a bit dicey.
In the second half, though, after Tech cut the lead to four, Duke called at timeout, stepped up their own physical play and popped Virginia Tech in the jaw, holding Jeff Allen, A.D. Vassallo, and Malcolm Delaney to – this is from the radio crew – a total of five points. Actually, they held Delaney and Allen to five; Vassallo was shut out in the second half. Defense clamped down, in other words, and of the next 39 points, Duke had 30 of them.
When Greg Paulus hit a three to push the lead to 14 (53-39 with 11:11 left), that was close to a backbreaker. A few minutes later it was an 18 point lead, and there was no way they were coming back at that point.
Still, you can see that there is some nice talent on this team, even if you don’t care for their style (we don’t). Physically anyway, Delaney looks like a pro, and Vassallo and Allen will make a living playing basketball, whether it’s in the NBA or in some foreign league.
Tech did a good job at times, mostly early, of getting behind Duke’s defense for easy baskets, and when they had Zoubek and Thomas in foul trouble, they worked the inside pretty well.
They also got some excellent minutes off the bench from J.T. Thompson and Hank Thorns, and Cheick Diate also played well.
Thorns did something we’ve never seen before: with his dribbling hand, he pushed Greg Paulus, then recovered quickly enough to keep Paulus from stealing the ball.
Ultimately, this game became a competition between Tech’s rather intense physical style and Duke’s potent defense. And the defense, after being challenged by the aggression, took over and won.
For Duke, while Zoubek only played 15 minutes, he proved a major obstacle inside and was hard for Tech to deal with. And Gerald Henderson, who was mugged several times, nonetheless gave Tech fits, scoring 15 points, adding eight boards and four assists for good measure. Kyle Singler was the leading scorer with 19 points, and had eight boards and an impressive seven assists. Nolan Smith added 13 points, two boards, three assists and two steals. Jon Scheyer had 11 points and four boards.
Dave McClure came off the bench for 17 minutes, put some solid pressure on Vassallo, and grabbed five boards.
For Tech, only Delaney broke out of single digits, scoring 12.
Having poked around a bit, it seems that our impression of an exceedingly physical game is shared by at least one writer, Paul Woody of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, who says that when Seth Greenberg yelled at Vassallo to think, after dropping a pass, that “[Vassalo] was thinking he was about to get sacked and had to throw the ball away before he took a loss.”
The article is complimentary, sort of, but we disagree with him in this respect: Duke doesn’t normally get into a game this physical. They play hard, they defend hard, but this game was played to Virginia Tech’s specs, not Duke’s. Duke adapted to it and prevailed, but stylistically, Tech won.
In spite of the second-half butt-kicking, Greenberg’s analysis is essentially correct: the Hokies were in this game until just about the 16 minute mark, and certainly were thinking they could win it. In the February 28th rematch, Tech will be seasoned, seething, and ready. But for now, Duke is much the better team.
*****
The crowd was really good against Tech, but it was funny in a number of respects. Never passing up a chance to watch UNC get embarrassed, hundreds of people lingered in the concourse to see the end of the B.C. triumph, filtering in only after it was over, and Duke’s game, for which they had of course paid, already underway.
We thought we heard the Crazies chant “father’s better,” in reference to Vassallo’s dad, a basketballl legend in Puerto Rico, but actually, it was “Dr. Pepper,” in reference to the recent charges filed against Vassallo and a former teammate after an alleged shoplifting incident.
Finally, when two young Tech fans squatted in a pair of front row seats and stood to cheer their team, the white-haired gentleman who sat behind them erupted. He demanded to see their tickets, told them to sit down and shut up, and they complied. There wasn’t much to cheer for at that point anyway.
