INDIANAPOLIS — If Duke thinks the world is against its basketball team, wait until Monday.
The Blue Devils punched their ticket to the national championship game by overpowering West Virginia 78-57 Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Earlier in the weekend, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski rallied around his program, which he said was unfairly reviled by many. Against local favourites Butler Monday, he shouldn’t expect many cheers.
Duke, now 34-5, had many fans on hand Saturday, though. More importantly, it had Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith. The three standouts rang up 48 of Duke’s first 60 points, many from the outside. The trio combined for 63 points, more than West Virginia’s entire tally.
Surprisingly, Krzyzewski seemed more impressed by Duke’s defensive performance than its offence. The Blue Devils held the Mountaineers to 41.3% shooting.
“West Virginia is a very complicated offensive team,” Krzyzewski said.
“Our defence was outstanding.”
West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said Duke also showed him more on offence than he was expecting.
“I’ve watched a lot of tape, I haven’t seen them play that well,” Huggins said. Huggins also lamented going to his zone defence when man-to-man scheme was keeping his team close.
By the time Mountaineer Da’Sean Butler ran smack into 7-foot-1 freight train Brian Zoubek on a debatable charge with 8:59 left the game, like Butler’s NCAA career, it was over. After colliding with Zoubek, Butler went down hard, clutching his sprained knee. Bawling either from the pain, the frustration of trailing 63-48, or both, Butler was helped off the floor after being consoled by Huggins.
It was a cruel end to the college career of Butler, WVU’s top player, who has legitimate NBA prospects.
Butler shot just 2-for-8 before the injury and said he felt like he “let his team and coach down.”
There would be no rallying around the fallen leader as the Big East tourney champs got outscored 15-9 the rest of the way.
The first half was much closer. Duke was up only eight at the break and seemed to be reeling a bit. The Blue Devils canned seven of threes in the first 20 minutes, which, understandably, led it to avoid the inside game. Duke shot zero free throws in the half. Zoubek chipped in with seven rebounds as Duke outboarded one of the top rebounding teams in the NCAA 17-10.
The Mountaineers shot 50% in the half, something it doesn’t accomplish very often, but it didn’t matter since Duke shot 53%. West Virginia slumped to just 6-for-20 (30%) from the field in the second half, while Duke went 13-25.
“They got us out of character, we usually are not like that on defence,” West Virginia forward Devin Ebanks said.
“We allowed a lot of penetration to the middle and they were able to convert.”
Duke avoided the shooting slumps that plagued it in earlier tournament games. Scheyer went 1-for-11 in the second round and Singler missed all of his shots in the regional final.
Now the pair is firing on all cylinders, Smith is starring as well and Zoubek is anchoring the team down low.
Many pundits said Duke had the easiest road to the Final Four of anybody in the tournament, but the teams has certainly proven itself.
“I just think we keep getting better,” Krzyzewski said. We’ve gotten better throughout the year and we got better this week.”
Not a good sign for the Bulldogs, who will have to be outstanding to prevent Duke from winning its first championship since 2002. Particularly so, since Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard are questionable for the game.
Coach K won’t take them lightly though.
“I don’t really consider them Cinderella,” he said.
“They’re one of the best teams in the country, they’ve earned it.”
As has Duke.
ryan.wolstat@sunmedia.ca
