No. 9/6 Duke to Square off with Notre Dame Saturday

Following the loss, the Blue Devils record dropped to 14-4 on the season while Notre Dame improved to 12-5 and have themselves a great win in their quest to March Madness.

“After playing here, I feel like we can play anywhere”, Colson said. This was their first win at Cameron, where they lost by 30 past year. For much of the first half, Ingram was forced to guard the Notre Dame forward on the block, but when faced with a series of post-ups, the Duke freshman got into foul trouble for the second straight game, picking up his fourth foul with 17:14 remaining.

Before Luke Kennard hit a three, he made a decision to toy with a Notre Dame defender on a crossover. He matched a then-career-high with 17 a year ago in the Irish’s 10-point victory over the Blue Devils in the ACC Tournament semifinals.

Rex Pflueger let go an off-balance prayer of a 3-pointer right before the shot clock expired to put the Fighting Irish up 86-80 with 3:10 left in the game. Another Allen drive that resulted in two free throws continued the back-and-forth nature of the whole contest, as Duke led 89-88 with 47.2 left in the game.

Irish coach Mike Brey called Wednesday night’s late game a grinder, and Auguste said the best way to get through a grinder is to “stay mentally focused”.

Matt Jones missed a 3-pointer that would have tied it with about 20 seconds left and Jackson made it 93-89 with two free throws with 12.8 seconds remaining.

It was an unlikely recipe for Notre Dame, with offensive boards and points in the paint carrying them in this one as Duke shot lights out from three.

Mike Krzyzewski is now 21-4 against his former assistants, with all four of those losses coming against Mike Brey and Notre Dame. The Blue Devils will be able to to outscore a lot of opponents in the ACC, but not Notre Dame.

“Winning is hard in this league and it’s going to be really hard for us”, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. So defensively, we just have to pick it up. Notre Dame grabbed the rebound, with Jackson hitting both of his free-throw attempts to give his team a four-point lead.

“It’s mid-January. The Dow Jones ain’t good, but ours is up, baby” – Brey, on Notre Dame’s resume and position in the ACC standings. For the first time since forward Amile Jefferson was lost indefinitely to a foot injury eight games ago, the Blue Devils’ lack of proven frontcourt depth played a key role in their 68-63 loss at Clemson on Wednesday. Auburn’s only win in the last 33 meetings had come in 2000, and students stormed the court to celebrate the upset. They were 14-0 when scoring that many points, and 0-3 when failing to reach the 79-point mark. We just have to make sure the younger guys know that we can’t just sulk on it. No matter how mad we are about this game, we have a very good Syracuse team on Monday.