Duke at Notre Dame on ESPNU now
- Thread starter EvilMD
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Duke was up 10 and came unraveled. But early on Okafor and Jones were unstoppable. Interesting watching this. Auguste isn't doing any showboating in this game. Wonder why he was such an ass against us? Also that baby faced kid hasn't done crap against Duke in this game. He killed us.
We beat a really good team in Notre Dame. Grant was the real deal. And Duke was no slouch. Those road games at Wisconsin, Notre Dame and Virginia really helped them get better. I still think if you switched our draw with theirs, we'd be celebrating a title, but oh well.
Yes. His first made field goal was a three in the final minute that made it a four point game.
You can say the same thing about Wisky that beat Arizona, UNC and then beat Kentucky. Bottomline as much as I hate to say it Duke was the best team at the end, all those ACC wars had them ready.
Kentucky lost to Wisconsin for the same reason Notre Dame lost to Kentucky. They tried to run clock at the end and then became one dimensional. It would have been a great game Duke/Kentucky for the title and hard to know which team would have won. But, nothing can be done now.
Great season until the Final Four. Worst case then occurred with Duke winning yet another National Championship.
Great season until the Final Four. Worst case then occurred with Duke winning yet another National Championship.
Notre Dame was shafted with that 3 seed the NCAA gave them because they were much better than that. We had to play a team in the elite 8 that had a strong case to be the final #1 seed and at worst should've been a 2. I realize that even if they were a 2 seed we would've played them in the elite 8 anyway, but they might have been in a different region if they were seeded appropriately. How did the NCAA justify giving the ACC Champion Irish a 3 seed with a 29-5 record?
I completely disagree that Duke was the best team. Kentucky was. Duke received a great draw and got the team whom they matched up with more favorably in the title game. Props to them for taking advantage, but you can bet your *** that they were happy to see Wisky instead of UK that Monday night.
No way ND had a case for a 1 seed. And if they did, they were about 4th-5th down the list of the teams that didn't get a 1 that should have been. UVA would have been a 1 over them, as well as Arizona, and Gonzaga. Then ND...so 4th on the pecking order of 2-3 seeds. I'll put them over KU due to less losses.
And what a stupid thread overall, its June and some of our fans want to watch Duke/ND game....just cracks me up.
Then don't read it. Get over yourself, schmuck.
For those of you who watched it, Notre Dame did what we did against Wisconsin and it worked, although they got really lucky when Grant picked up a loose ball and flung it at the rim as the shot clock expired and it went in. They completely let the air out of the ball the last two minutes of the game.
Agree, Notre Dame was not getting a 1 seed with a schedule that ranked 41st. Even a great ACC couldn't get them a better schedule ranking than that because their out of conference schedule was pretty light stuff overall though they did play Sparty and Purdue. I do agree a 2 was probably justifiable. Kansas had the # 1 SOS which I guess is what kept them on that 2 line though they continued to average a loss per week down the stretch of the season. Kansas and Virginia were two teams that appeared to be trending downward by selection Sunday.
Regarding the main topic by the OP.
This was a terrific game, Duke took a 10 point lead somewhere in the second half. Can't recall the exact juncture and Notre Dame really stormed back and made some big plays down the stretch. (This was the last game with Sulaimon.) When they rematched in Durham, Duke was becoming a very different team, especially with Winslow getting healthier(some kind of bruised/cracked rib issue earlier in the conference season) and led the Irish 43-13 at one point before winning 90-60. It was never a contest beyond the first 4-5 minutes. In the ACC Tournament ND changed strategy and played similar to how they attacked Kentucky. They went right down the gut at Okafor repeatedly taking it very aggressively to the rim and it worked. Okafor had like 28 but that was the first game I think all year where the guard combo of Tyus Jones/Quinn Cook did not play very well.
I was telling people how good Notre Dame was during the season. Ironically when Duke beat them by 30, there were a number of posters here saying things like: "Notre Dame can't guard anybody", "The Irish plays no defense" etc. etc. like it was no big deal that they were blown out. Then they gave Kentucky all they could handle and the reaction since has been about how great Notre Dame is. ;-)
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Well, that's true, but doesn't allow for improvements made by ND over the last month of the season. I was one of those who said, halfway through the year, that of the top teams ND was one I'd like UK to face because they couldn't guard. But when I said that I didn't appreciate just how good their offense was, how much senior leadership can mean (especially right now when seniors are an endangered species), and I couldn't have known how much better they'd get on the defensive end over the last month of the year. Still not sure how to explain that - not certain I've seen that kind of improvement often that late in a year......In the end, I honestly felt a little bad for Bray: that was a special team, he might coach 50 years and not have another like it.
There was a reason for that. ND was something like 100th in defensive efficiency.
TT, Auguste was only serviceable in those games, it was the Grant/Jackson show and those other two guards they have are sneaky good. Connaughton has a unique brand of toughness out there that a lot of players don't have. They're very good, those two guards can really break people down and when they do there are deadly shooters waiting for the kickout. Auguste is pretty good though and can finish so you don't want to get fully caught up in their guards and lose him.
Basketball is a game of matchups. Duke may not have matched up as well with Kentucky, I don't know and obviously we'll never know but I do think Duke's collection of guards was a bad matchup for Wisconsin. Duke had no business going into the Kohl center that early in the season and winning by double digits over a Final Four team that returned everybody and yet they did beat the experienced team and the superior guard play was the reason. Tyus Jones absolutely ate Wisky's lunch twice.
In that scenario, someone else would have knocked off Wisky. Duke or Notre Dame.
Disagree with you, Duke quickness would have been a nightmare for the cats. Wisconsin beat Kentucky because there bigs were more skilled, actually Wisky match better up against Duke because they were better from the outside.
Depends, do you think the officials blow several critical calls in the last 3 minutes again that give Wisc 4 points. The final score doesn't mean much except who won. KAT missed a ft in the last half minute that would've made it a one possession game even if Wisc hits their fts. Wisc got several good bounces in the last few minutes of the game that is the way things go if they played again who knows. Yes, UK lost that game but nothing about it made it look like Wisc was UK's kryptonite and I still believe UK would've beat them in a best of 5.
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