It’s very hard to win a game 5 against 2, so when only 2 players for the Devils showed up in this game it didn’t spell a very good outcome. That coupled with the excellent play of Kendal Marshall and Duke was toast. Duke was never really in it, and never matched the intensity and skill level that UNC brought to this game. Not much to say about it really aside from it shows a couple of different things. One being the difference between having a point guard and a guard playing the point – Kendal Marshall was fantastic, he has amazing court vision and is showing to be a master at his craft. As for his Duke counterpart, Nolan Smith scored 30 points but only dished out 3 assists and had 5 turnovers. This was the type of game when duke needed to bring much more to the table but fell horribly short. Also it shows the difference between a team surging and a team that has potentially already peaked. The Devils play on both ends of the floor has been pretty stagnated over the past month and it’s hard to say why, other players aren’t getting involved and with that it’s probably difficult to go into a game knowing that you probably will only get 2-3 shots. There was a lot of standing around and not much movement. Some of that was Duke, a lot of that was Carolina getting into the Devils.
With this loss obviously the ACC regular season crown goes to the Heels, well deserved. Duke must once again regroup, and with the play over the lat month or so regrouping is severely needed. There are a lot of questions to be answered in a short amount of time. As much as we love to see the 3 ball go in for the Devils, it is very frustrating as a fan to see a team incapable of manufacturing points in any other way. The lane is there for the Dukies and I’ll take a layup over a 3 pointer any day, the percentages don’t lie.
The only other player of note was Seth Curry who is still hot, putting in 20 points against UNC and the only Duke player to hit a 3 pointer, wow. That is a sad stat in and of itself.
