Arizona made seven-straight foul shots in the final 47 seconds to hold off Duke 78-73 Friday night, handing Jon Scheyer his first Cameron defeat.
Scheyer called it a “reality check,” a still young team going toe-to-toe against a veteran opponent.
It was a back-and-forth game, with an intensity not often seen in November.
Duke had 14 turnovers, was outrebounded 45-33 and only shot 12 free throws, as Arizona went over 11 crucial second-half minutes without having a single foul called on them.
It seemed like one of those games where Duke was always pushing the boulder up the hill. Duke only led for 3:14 and never led by more than two points. The visitors jumped on top 4-0, 6-2, 15-12, that sort of thing.
Duke did not close out the first half well. Christian Reeves converted a lob and Duke led 25-23, with 5:54 left in the half. But Arizona kept crashing the boards and Duke kept letting them.
Motiejus Krivas tied the game at 25 on an offensive rebound. He missed the and-one but Arizona grabbed two more offensive rebounds that led to Kylan Boswell completing the four-point possession from the line.
Arizona outrebounded Duke 29-15 in the first half, turning 11 offensive rebounds into 10 second-chance points.
Duke had two offensive rebounds, resulting in zero points.
“We just can’t play one half of the game,” Jeremy Roach said. “We can’t come out slow. All five guys have to be together. In the first half, they kind of out-played us. They were first to 50/50 balls, they outrebounded us on the offensive glass and the defensive glass and were pushing in transition.”
Scheyer said Duke’s three-guard lineup shouldn’t necessarily result in a rebounding deficit like that.
“Rebounding, if you’re smaller, bigger is still about effort, about blocking out and pursuing the ball. We’re going to find a few times tonight where we stood and watched. It’s just a mindset. There weren’t any plays where five guys were blocking out. I think it shows we were thinking about offense.”
Duke was 2-12 from beyond the arc in an opening half which ended when Caleb Love banked in a triple from an angle where no one really tries to bank in anything.
But it counted. Arizona led 41-33 at the half, ending on an 18-8 run.
Duke cut it to four, fell back by eight, cut it to four, finally caught up, then took a 54-52 lead on a Sean Stewart tip-in. But a 6-0 Arizona run put Duke back down again.
Boulder meet hill.
Roach gave Duke a 67-65 lead with 2:11 left on a 3 as the shot clock expired and Filipowski gave Duke its last lead on an offensive rebound, 69-67, with 1:08 left. Duke cut the deficit to a single point twice in the final seconds and a turnover down by three led to a final dunk at the buzzer.
Filipowski led Duke with 25 points and eight rebounds, while Roach added 17 points. But no one else from the Duke side scored in double figures and no Duke reserve played more than 13 minutes.
Keshad Johnson erased that final two-point deficit for the Wildcats with an old-fashioned 3-point play, Duke had some empty possessions and those foul shots kept going down.
Scheyer wasn’t happy with the first-half rebounding woes but he was more concerned with an offense that simply wasn’t very efficient.
“The biggest thing for me is we didn’t play together. That’s hard for me to swallow. That’s not okay for us. We didn’t play Duke basketball. I take full responsibility for that. We had too many plays with zero passes, one-pass possessions before we put the ball up. That’s something we’re going to get to work on right away. I don’t know what went into that. But it’s not winning basketball.”
For the record Duke assisted on 14 of 28 field goals, with 14 turnovers.
Filipowski said Duke didn’t do the little things well, rebound, switch on screens, stuff that “we need to clean up. It’s real, because I’m going to be thinking about this all night and all day tomorrow but we have to move forward and make sure the next time we’re in this position, we come out on the winning side.”
Hard to argue. Little things win close games and a veteran Arizona team did those little things better than a Duke team that despite all the hoopla about the returning players still started three sophomores and a freshman.
Next play. March is a long way away and there clearly are lessons to be learned. If Duke learns them then this stinging loss becomes less stinging.
“Playing this game in the long run, for the season, is going to be the best thing for us,” Scheyer summed up. “No doubt in my mind. It’s hard to see that right now but we knew we were going to be tested. It’s what we expected. There’s no way other than experiencing something to know what you have to improve or do better.”
Boulder up the hill is the perfect analogy. It’s great this team can learn the lesson to not run a one on three offense against quality competition, we didn’t recruit your teammates to be spectators Duke has plenty!
The most disappointing thing to me about the game, otherthan thefirst half rebounding , was how many Arizona fans were in attendance. If one can't sell his or her tickets to a Duke fan, I wish they would place them, well, you where. A decicidedly non-sunshiney place.