Early in the first half of his latest win-or-retire men’s NCAA tournament game, Mike Krzyzewski didn’t appear too stressed by the pressure to extend his farewell tour.
A grinning Krzyzewski jokingly signaled for a blocking foul after Duke’s Jeremy Roach careened into a referee trying to save a loose ball from going out of bounds.
Duke seemed to take a cue from its legendary head coach during tense moments in Thursday night’s 78-73 Sweet 16 victory over third-seeded Texas Tech. The second-seeded Blue Devils performed with poise and confidence down the stretch, hitting their final eight shots of the game to erase a late two-point deficit, stave off Krzyzewski’s swan song and keep their quest alive to send their coach out on top.
A pivotal moment of the game came five minutes into the second half when Krzyzewski grew tired of big, physical Texas Tech shredding his trademark man-to-man. With Duke trailing by six, he called for the Blue Devils to switch to a 2-3 zone that he hadn’t taught leading up to the game but had labeled in the scouting report as “if necessary.”
“It was necessary,” he said.
While Krzyzewski has occasionally deployed a 2-3 zone the past few years after coaching alongside Jim Boeheim with USA Basketball, the new look seemed to throw Texas Tech off. A few consecutive bad possessions from the Red Raiders was all Duke needed to close the gap.
“It kept down the amount of physicality because they were wearing us down,” Krzyzewski said. “The zone gave us a chance to dance around the ring a little bit instead of being in the corner.”
In a fiercely contested final 10 minutes that featured a flurry of lead changes, Paolo Banchero hit maybe the biggest shot. The highly touted freshman’s 3-pointer with just under three minutes left gave Duke the lead for good and ignited a 12-5 game-ending run.
Mark Williams delivered a crucial blocked shot to preserve Duke’s lead, Roach hit a pair of fearless jumpers to extend the cushion to five and Wendell Moore and A.J. Griffin closed the game out at the free-throw line. When Texas Tech’s Adonis Arms missed a 3-pointer that would have cut the Duke lead to one in the closing seconds, Krzyzewski finally unleashed all his bottled-up emotion in the form of a huge fist pump.
“What a game! What a tremendous game!” he said later.
While Duke did its part in setting up a heavily anticipated Elite Eight showdown with Gonzaga, the No. 1 overall seed did not. Arkansas toppled the Zags earlier on Thursday night, meaning it will be the fourth-seeded Razorbacks facing the Blue Devils in Saturday’s West Regional final in San Francisco.
Krzyzewski’s future has hovered over every Duke game for weeks. That certainly wasn’t the only fascinating aspect of Thursday’s matchup with Texas Tech. This was a clash of title contenders who were built wildly differently.
Duke features almost exclusively four- and five-star recruits, NBA prospects who have been hailed as elite players since before they entered high school in some cases. Texas Tech relied on a collection of guys with a chip on their shoulder, guys who have heard for years they weren’t good enough for one league or another and are motivated to prove those naysayers wrong.
What made Texas Tech a scary draw for Duke was the fearsome no-middle defense that the Red Raiders deploy. Mark Adams built college basketball’s top-ranked defense by emphasizing three bedrock principles: Keep the ball out of the paint, rotate fast and maintain constant ball pressure.
In the game’s opening three minutes, Duke’s lack of experience against elite defenses showed. The Blue Devils put themselves in a 10-2 hole with three live-ball turnovers and a couple of early airballs.
After a timeout from Krzyzewski, Duke settled down, executing its set plays and making smarter decisions with the ball. The Blue Devils pulled within four by halftime, went back and forth with Texas Tech for much of the second half and then closed with a powerful finishing kick.
Published on: Article source
