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In a tough game which matched schools of radically different approaches,
Stanford's prevailed as the Cardinal won, 80-79 in overtime. This was
obviously a difficult game for Carrawell to swallow, judging my his post-game
comments, where he emphasized that he had told the younger players that this
wasn't exhbition season anymore, and it was time to get serious about
things. Coach K took a slightly more philosophical approach, saying that
it was a useful way to emphasize precision - a hand down here on a three point
shot, a step off on an inbounds play, and the game might have gone the other
way. Coach K didn't say it, but he might have said how much difference there was
between the first half and the second.
The first half was a mixed bag. On the one hand, there was a lot of
nervousness and trepidation, particularly inside, where Duke often seemed
reluctant to challenge the Cardinal. Stanford went out to an 10-0 lead before
Duke battled back into it. Battier played aggressively, and Williams was
willing to challenge Stanford, and had a couple of wonderful plays, including a
sweet fastbreak pass to Dunleavy. All in all, though, Duke looked
tentative and wasn't ready to push the tempo to their own liking - the half was
very much at Stanford's pace.
For the half, Duke shot 29%, which was amazing all things considered.
Jason Williams showed some huge flashes on offense, including his Magic
Johnson inspired back and forth pass. It was really sweet. But he
also showed he isn't yet applying as much ball pressure as he is capable of -
his man turned him a couple of times and drove the lane, and as big as Stanford
is, Jason just can't let that happen. The key for Duke, in many respects this
year, will be to keep the penetration to a minimum, because guys like Horvath,
Sanders, and Dunleavy aren't big enough to contest people under the basket yet.
On the bright side, though, was Battier's aggressiveness, a burst of
assertiveness by Boozer, and a couple of brilliant plays by Horvath - first a
tremendous block under the basket which everyone assumed Sanders made, and
second, a steal and three point bomb to seal out the half. Coach K has
said that Nick's biggest problem is confidence - he even said it was why he
keeps breaking his face, because his body language indicates a lack of
confidence and he slouches and thus puts his face in danger, and that's no joke:
tonight is the first night he's played without his mask, which he wore to
protect a twice-broken nose, a fractured eye socket, and a deeply cut lip.
On another bright note, in the first half, Duke surprisingly got 3 times as
many offensive boards as Stanford, by 9-3, though they were outrebounded overall
22-18. And in another very positive sign, Duke had 3 turnovers to
Stanford's 12 and nabbed 4 steals. And they controlled Madsen by and
large.
In the second half, Madsen and his inside cohorts turned the pressure up a
bit - but after about six minutes, Duke, shooting horribly, began to play a
fairly high-level defense. They put a lot more pressure on Stanford and had an
11-0 run at the end of regulation to take the lead by six. But Stanford fought
back, and with great poise, overcame Duke's superior athleticism with smart
passing and excellent marksmanship to put the game into overtime.
In the overtime, they pushed their lead out and dominated early before Duke
fought their way back into it. Carrawell and Battier took over and pretty
much put the team on their backs. They fought hard but couldn't quite pull
it off. Jason Williams, who had talked publicly of enjoying pressure, took a
three pointer that was well short of the rim near the end. The announcer
mentioned that he had told Jason he'd heard a lot about him and was looking
forward to seeing him. Jason said something like "great, more
pressure."Â The Garden is a difficult debut, particularly for a local
kid.
Though they came up short, it's a valuable loss in a number of ways. First of
all, they faced significant adversity and still managed to put themselves in a
position to win. Secondly, when Battier fouled out, they had to find other ways
to stay in the game, which they found. Â
As the game progressed, Duke evened up the rebounding, though Stanford came
to dominate the offensive boards, by 18-9. And though Jason Williams had 4
turnovers to 1 assist, in a stark reversal of his earlier, exhibition games, he
managed to come up with 8 rebounds versus a very large team - and 4 of them
offensive.
It's a game that anyone would hate to lose, since both teams played their
hearts out and played good,clean basketball. By the end of the year, the
result might be different, but there was no question tonight that Stanford
earned this victory through superior poise and discipline. Presumably the
precision which Coach K spoke of will be a point of emphasis in weeks to com
Notes...is it just us or is Christensen starting to bear a strong resemblance
to former Bad Boy Bill Laimbeer? ...Horvath showed us a lot of heart tonight,
and his half-ending play is bound to help his confidence...Boozer played 11
minutes and got 1 rebound...Dunleavy played 28 and got...1 rebound....Nate
didn't get a field goal...Madsen is a much better player than we realized and we
already had a healthy respect for him...Casey Jacobsen is going to help him
score a lot of points by opening up the inside...by the end of the year Stanford
is going to be very tough to defend...part of Jason Williams' maturation at Duke
is going to involve ball pressure...as Coach K said, Jason is still learning the
point....but if he can emulate Wojo and just attack the ballhandler, the
opposing offense will be much less effective immediately....