Duke 63 Clemson 62

It wasn't the way we thought it would happen, but Duke did beat Clemson, if barely, and moves into Saturday's semifinals against...NC State? How cool is that?

We'll talk about State later.

In this game, Duke ran into a familiar obstacle - handling the late game - but survived it.

For much of the game, the Blue Devils played great basketball. The Devils got after it on defense, moved the ball well and played with heart.

But in the last part of the game Clemson showed enormous heart and desire.

Duke was up 56-47 with 5:59 left. By the 3:53 mark, Clemson had cut the lead to 56-53.

And the Tigers kept coming. Rasheed Sulaimon hit a jumper to put Duke up 58-53. But Rod Hall got it back in a few seconds later. Jabari Parker scored followed by Landry Nnoko hitting a basket for Clemson.

At that point, with 2:16 left, Duke was up 60-57.

Rasheed Sulaimon missed a three, and then Damarcus Harrison scored to cut the lead to just one.

Rasheed Sulaimon split a pair of free throws to put Duke back up 61-59.

KJ McDaniels split his free throws to make it a one point game.

Thirty-one seconds later, Rod Hall scored to put Clemson up with nine seconds left.

It was officially nail biting time.

If you shop Amazon, please start here and help DBR
Available now!

Rodney Hood hit a pair of clutch free throws with 0:04 seconds on the clock to give Duke the lead back.

This was one of the coolest plays of the game: the team looked to Coach K to see if he was going to call time out. He waved them downcourt, before Clemson could set up, which got Hood to the foul line.

Clemson got disconcertingly close to scoring again, but Hall stumbled. A closer look at the video shows what happened.

As he has so often during his career, Tyler Thornton made the sort of play that never shows up statistically.

With Sulaimon closing in to try to draw a charge, Thornton reached in and stripped the ball away.

Hall lost his balance a bit, falling between Thornton and Sulaimon as the game and glory fell from his grasp.

Was it a foul? It was very close either way. Thornton clearly got his hand on the ball, but did he touch him anywhere else?

As Hall falls through, his leg goes up into Thornton's shoulder. Thornton is leaning back, and Sulaimon has also edged out of the way.

One thing we've learned is that we don't know much of the subtleties of officiating. How do you call that?

Thornton clearly got the ball - he put his hand right on top of it - but after that, we couldn't begin to answer the technical aspects.

What is clear, though, is that after Thornton hits the ball, Hall loses his balance. You can see him stumble.

At any rate, no call was made, and now Duke gets to move on to play this year's Cinderella, NC State, on Saturday.

State has found a lot of chemistry late in the year.

TJ Warren is obviously a breakout star, but against Syracuse, lots of guys contributed.

Jordan Vandenburg,who has certainly exceeded our expectations, scored 10 and played havoc on the interior defense. Kyle Washington grabbed seven boards. Ralston Turner had nine, including a critical, yet ridiculous bank shot.

And Tyler Lewis and Anthony Barber, who bring such different skills to the point, are complimenting each other quite nicely.

This team has grown a lot in the last month. Look back on the game in Durham, where Duke won by 35. That's not happening again. State is playing very well.