Maryland Beats Duke, 79-72
Really, it was a tournament game, wasn’t it? Two teams playing at a high levels and one had to yield.
Unfortunately, it was Duke as Maryland prevailed, 79-72, behind an inspirational close by Greivis Vasquez and solid supporting performances from Eric Hayes, Sean Mosely, Jordan Williams and Adrian Bowie.
It’ll be regarded as an upset of course, since Duke is (was) #4 and Maryland is still an outlier as far as the polls are concerned.
But really it’s not, and anyone who follows ACC basketball could have told you that this was going to be a close, tough game.
The end, in fact, resembled the end of at least two of the games in 2001, where Duke won on late tip-ins. Obviously that didn’t happen here, but the intensity was about the same.
On this score you have to give both teams a lot of credit. Maryland came out incredibly pumped for this game, for Duke, as they always do. And for their part, while Maryland seized an early advantage, Duke’s intensity surfaced by the end of the half, when they went from 10 down with 3:38 left to just two down at the half, 38-40.
It was a surprising turn of events because Maryland had to that point been in control. But just like that, Duke roared back.
And the game was in many respects in Duke’s favor until the last 2:09, when Maryland broke a 69-69 tie to stay in front.
For Duke, there was a lot of good stuff to take away.
The Big Three – you might as well call it the Big Three+one with Zoubek now, or maybe just the Five Upperclassmen Starters would suffice – were solid as usual. Kyle Singler carried the team early when it looked like Maryland might run away, and late in the game, Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith were highly productive and resourceful even though they couldn’t hit the shots late to catch up. We liked the fact that both guys tried to take over the game (and almost did, too).
For the game, despite Maryland’s high pressure offense, Duke had just eight turnovers and gave up just one steal to the Terps.
Where they didn’t do as well was in controlling Maryland’s shooting percentage, but that was partly due to the emotion Maryland attached to the contest. Sometimes the psychology of a game just gets too hard to control. Between senior night, a crack at Duke, and a chance to tie for first in the ACC, things just got in a groove for Maryland, which is part of the reason why guys like Adrian Bowie and Sean Moseley were hitting rather promiscuous three pointers, shots they normally wouldn’t try (and part of the reason why Gary Williams didn’t object).
For Duke, one of the nicer aspects of this game was the re-emergence of Andre Dawkins.
College is a big adjustment for any player, and Dawkins was hit with a tough tragedy when his sister died in an accident en route to the St. John’s game.
No one can understand how that affects another person, or if that even dilutes your focus. Who knows?
But we think most Duke fans understood that for Dawkins this year, there was a need to let him have his space.
Whatever he’s been through, it’s nice to see him emerging again as a marksmen. He can be a huge help in Greensboro and beyond if he starts nailing threes again. The kid has a Redick-esque stroke, and it’d be nice to unleash it on some people.
And we’d be remiss if we didn’t say a few words about Maryland, and in particular Vasquez, Eric Hayes, and Landon Milbourne.
All three of these guys have taken a certain amount of abuse during their careers. Vasquez deserved a lot of it, particularly on the road – who can ever forget "come on, bitches!" to the Cameron Crazies – but certainly not what he got from his home fans last year and at the beginning of this season as well. He is what he is – emotionally volatile, often hit or miss, and when he misses, he misses pretty thoroughly.
And in fairness, vice-versa.
As for Hayes, all he’s ever done is play. He’s taken some heat for, basically, not being Steve Blake, but he’s carved out a solid role for himself.
And for Milbourne, so often forced to play out of position, it’s nice to see him getting a chance to play to his strengths.
The funny thing about Vasquez is that really he shouldn’t be that good. He’s not fast, he’s not a great leaper, he’s not even that strong. In fact, we seem to recall that during the NBA evaluation period last year, he tested the absolute worst for overall athleticism.
But he understands spacing, he understands emotion, and he’s not scared to completely screw up.
On a good day, he also understand angles and where his teammates are and how to get the ball to them.
Right now, he’s playing as well as anyone in the country, and his teammates are on the ride too. How far can they take this act? Maybe elite eight?
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