NC State broke open a close game in the middle of the second half and held on for 76-64 win over Duke Sunday evening. The win sends State to the Final Four, while ending Jon Scheyer’s second Duke season at 27-9.
It was a perfect storm for Duke. The bad kind. Duke led 27-21 at the half and led 38-36 with 12:41 left, after a Kyle Filipowski three-point play.
But Duke missed 13 of their next 14 shots from the field, with some turnovers thrown in for good measure. Duke did make some foul shots. But while all this was going on D.J. Burns and D.J. Horne were lighting it up and Duke found themselves staring into a double-digit deficit, with time running out.
State outscored Duke 22-6 during this decisive seven-minute span and never gave Duke any chance for a comeback.
Not that Jared McCain didn’t make a good run at it. The freshman sharpshooter scored 15 points in the final three-and-half minutes.
McCain ended with 32 points but didn’t get anywhere near enough help. Every Blue Devil not named Jared shot 11 for 39 from the field. That’s 28% for those of you scoring at home.
Tyrese Proctor suffered through a scoreless game, missing all nine of his field goal attempts, five from beyond the arc.
Burns muscled his way to 29 points, 13 for 19 from the field. Horne had 20, eight of them coming in that decisive second-half run.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way for Duke, not after they knocked off powerful Houston Friday night. I’m sure a case can be made that Duke’s game against a physical Houston team took more out of them then State’s win over a Marquette team that most decidedly wasn’t all that physical.
Or maybe Duke just couldn’t match State’s experience, or its Cinderella energy.
Duke’s defense was on point early. In fact Duke avoided that dreaded slow start and led the final 13:25 of the opening half, the biggest lead nine points at 27-18.
A charge and a couple of misses kept Duke from extending that lead.
Then the second half and Duke went splat and that was that.
“I thought in the first half, we played great defense,” Jon Scheyer said. “They only scored 21 points. But we never had a rhythm on offense. Never. So in the second half, they started to score more, and our offense just -- it was probably the most disjointed game that we've had all year.”
Jeremy Roach (13 points) and Kyle Filipowski (11 points, nine rebounds) joined McCain in double figures. Duke outrebounded State 41-38 and only turned it over nine times.
But State only turned it over five times and outscored Duke 55-37 after intermission.
Roach used the dreaded “S” word to describe Duke’s struggling offense.
“I think just them switching us up like that, us not moving it side to side, getting to the second side and stuff, it was kind of sticking. That's what happens when people switch. But, I mean, just give credit to them. We weren't us today.”
Anytime the ball sticks, it is not good.
Scheyer added that he thought Duke’s shooting woes led to the second-half defensive woes, misses leading to defensive rebounds, leading to run-outs and good shots.
Scheyer was justifiably proud of the way his young, battered team came back from back-to-back losses going into the tournament.
“I feel for these guys, but I'm thankful for them for everything they've done for our program and for Duke. They've been awesome to coach.”
In these days of NIL and the transfer portal a season-ending loss doesn’t lead to much, if any down time for a coach or many of the players. Decisions will have to be made and we’ll talk about them down the road. But for now I’ll sign off with these words from Scheyer.
“I couldn't be more confident in where this thing is heading and what we're doing.”
Holy EMBARRASSMENT Batman
One of your great gifts ,Jim , to your fan club is perspective.
The silver lining for yesterday is MIA for me .
Pre game 84.6 % Duke W
Many chances to extend first half lead from 7 and then 9 .,
Lose the second half 55-37 No way ..
An unfortunate ending but I enjoyed the season. We will get them next year.