Duke survives Clemson rally, 79-72, advances in ACC Tournament

Besides the 3-pointer to give the Blue Devils their first lead, he had a nice pass to Tatum for a dunk that quieted what looked like a North Carolina comeback attempt after Berry checked back in. He ranks fourth in the ACC in steals percentage, accounting for 27.3 percent of the Blue Devils’ total steals on the season. Deng Adel led the Cardinals with 21 points, with five rebounds.

“So that was a quarterfinal game?” “You’re a special player when you’re able to do that”, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said.

The junior guard drew technical fouls in each of his last two games, including a scoreless outing in 12 foul-troubled minutes against Clemson on Wednesday.

Louisville shot 15-26 from the charity stripe, which head coach Rick Pitino spoke about after the game. “If we improve (our free throw shooting), I think we have a chance to go pretty far”.

But, how the second half would change everything. Since scoring 25 points against IN on New Year’s Eve, Mitchell has averaged 19.1 points, 4.2 rebounds, 3.1 assists and made 41.7 percent of his three point shots (55-of-132). Tatum settled for jump shots to begin the game, which was a disappointment given that he was being guarded by Hicks and Luke Maye to begin the game. We don’t let anything affect the way that we’re playing as a group.

The Blue Devils have played well defensively in this tournament, even with giving up an average of 77 points per game. Now, in a little more than 24 hours, the rivalry that has long electrified a state, a region and the entire college basketball world would be temporarily relocated from its permanent home in central North Carolina to provide a jolt to the biggest city in the country, and it was making those who were already giddy with anticipation do and say some odd things. “We hit a couple more shots than them”. It’s got excellent guard play, depth among role playing big men, has length, creates hard matchups for opposing defense and plays great defense of its own. “Especially on the defensive end, we emphasized rebounding and the guards coming in”. “We started to attack”. North Carolina hasn’t been a historically good three-point shooting team as of late.

The sixth-seeded Cavaliers (22-9) are in the ACC quarterfinals for the sixth straight season and meet third-seeded and No. 22 Notre Dame at Barclays Center on Thursday night.

“I was rooting for Duke”, confessed one fan adorned in Tar Heel regalia. In the span of 12 minutes and 59 seconds, Duke went from down 11 to winners by 10, 93-83, over a Tar Heels team many figure could win the national championship. Can the Blue Devils get this much production from these three again? North Carolina coach Roy Williams also kept guard Joel Berry glued to the bench with four fouls for too long and called only one timeout during Duke’s decisive surge.

“We’ve gotten better here”, Krzyzewski said.

“We could not stop them in transition in man”. It was embarrassing. I watched it yesterday. They weren’t. They thought they had good chemistry. They are both 97-44 in ACC Tournament play, tied for the best record in the 64-year history of the event.

“The biggest thing, we just had to settle down, really focus on defence”.

Freshman Bruce Brown was fantastic for the Hurricanes (21-11), scoring 21 points on 9 of 13 shooting.

That foul trouble also led to another reminder, this time from the day before against Miami.

-Dwayne Bacon was the only player for Florida State that was on his game. His point totals have been 16, 22, 15, 20, 8 and 15.

Notre Dame (24-8) led by as much as 17 and were up double-digits over the final 18:19 minutes.