W-S
| Fayetteville |
N&O | N&O
| Charlotte |
H-S | Va.
Pilot | Richmond
| Kinston
| Sportsline
| Roanoke | Roanoke
| Boxscore
| Notes
| Quotes
| Photo
Gallery | AP
Photo Gallery
The immediate and entirely understandable reaction to this game is: wow, what
a shot! But a better reaction would be: what the heck happened?
Tech played a superb game, and only a miracle separated them from an upset,
but Duke's defense was not up to normal standards, and certainly J.J. Redick
didn't play his normal game. Duke won by a miracle, but really, Tech
played a very smart game, took advantage of everything Duke gave them, and had
the game in hand until Dockery's miracle.
Coleman Collins and Zabian Dowdell were both superb for Tech. Collins played
40 minutes and got 25 points and 8 boards. Dowdell had no major problems
with Duke's defense and got inside pretty much whenever he wanted to.
We're only surprised that he ended up 7-17. It seemed like he did a lot better
than that.
Duke only had control of the game for a few minutes late, when the Devils
built a 10 point lead, but Tech sliced that up, scoring 12 straight points,
including the Coleman tip-in with 1.6 left on the clock.
Pretty clearly, Duke is elated by the nature of the win, but having watched
Duke for a long time, we can pretty much promise you that the post-game comments
went something like this:
There shouldn't be any celebrating in here. Dock hit a hell of a shot,
and we're all glad we won, but we were totally outplayed. Our defense
sucked. How many times did we outhustle them? Not enough.
This is not acceptable, period. They played a lot better than we did,
and we won because we got lucky. That's not Duke basketball.
Or words to that effect, anyway.
Certainly there is a big gap between where Virginia Tech is and where, say,
Texas is. Duke faces the Longhorns in New York this weekend, after a bout
with Penn, and they won't be able to win against a deep, big, and physical team
with less than a supreme effort. That's no knock on Tech, because they
were superb in Cameron. But no one is prepared to argue that they are a
potential #1 team.
And frankly, after Duke's performance, pre-Dockery heroics, it's hard to
argue that Duke is the best team in the country. That's not to say they
can't be, but are they the best team in the country right now?
Objectively: no.