Lagerald Vick, left, and Malik Newman enjoy the spoils of the Midwest Region title. (Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press)
OMAHA — The habitual winners at Duke might cringe years into the future over a basketball so bloody indecisive that it seemed to touch every smidgen of iron as it lollygagged around the rim, kissed the backboard, ventured back to the rim and then rolled off toward the floor as if deciding it craved overtime. The habitual winners at Kansas might revel years into the future over a basketball so blasted gorgeous that when it went up from the left corner and arced downward, it seemed not so much to swish as to smash down, as if deciding it aimed to stoke some bedlam.
Meanwhile, the 17,579 witnesses inside CenturyLink Center on Sunday evening will chatter years into the future over their ticket-buying luck at seeing this Midwest Region final because of all the gasps and palpitations and frenzy and quality it provided. And at last, the heavy majority that yearned for the Jayhawks will know their team surmounted a big heap of difficult stuff because they whistled boldly through the corridor of their goblins and haunts, the Elite Eight, and the 85-81 overtime win signaled Kansas could withstand both that and the constellation of stars at Duke.
“It’s hard to describe, man,” said Kansas senior leader Devonte’ Graham, the consensus all-American whose gut the Jayhawks’ Elite Eight losses in 2016 and 2017 had attempted to mangle. Yet describe, the participants did. Blue Devils Coach Mike Krzyzewski, whose record in this oft-torturous round in the NCAA tournament dipped to a still-celestial 12-3 and caused him an ashen final walk down the hallway afterward, called it “an honor to play in this game.” Kansas Coach Bill Self, whose reddened reaction upon the final horn hinted at apparent demon-banishment, called it “a big-boy game” and “two blue bloods that’ll beat each other’s heads in” and “a heavyweight fight” and “the second-best win that we’ve ever had,” after only the 2008 title game against Memphis.
“I would have been proud to coach in that game even if the outcome was different,” he said.
Indeed, Kansas ventures to the third Final Four of Self’s 15 seasons — and its first in six years — by riding a demanding rodeo of a game that played out with ludicrous evenness. Kansas made 30 of 69 field goal attempts; Duke made 30 of 70. Kansas used rebounding by scrapping committee to beat Duke on the boards 47-32; Duke used beyond-freshman moxie from its freshmen to commit only 11 turnovers to 18 from its opponent. Duke sprang for five players in double figures; Kansas presented four with another guy at nine points. Duke giant Wendell Carter Jr. fouled out in overtime; Kansas giant Udoka Azubuike fouled out two minutes before overtime.
Duke (29-8) never led by more than four.
Kansas (31-7) never led by more than seven, and when it did, with 16:06 left, Duke cleaned up most of that in a jiffy.
The Blue Devils received a fine game from their lead star, Marvin Bagley III, with 16 points and 10 rebounds and two assists; the Jayhawks had a soaring game from one of their two lead stars, Malik Newman, the transfer from Mississippi State who scored 32 points, including the paramount shot from the corner with 1:49 left in overtime. Duke had large splashes from its slightly less famous freshmen, Trevon Duval and Gary Trent Jr., who scored 20 and 17 points and also made confident drives; Kansas had shrewd Lagerald Vick operating from the middle of the Duke zone with 14 points, Graham with six assists and six rebounds, and 6-foot-8 senior Svi Mykhailiuk with 11 points and 10 rebounds and pretty damned good defense on the 6-11 Bagley and . . .
And Kansas’s second-biggest shot.
It came with 26 seconds left in regulation, and Mykhailiuk’s audacity in taking it exemplified Kansas’s audacity all told. He had just missed two open three-point shots as things had begun to creak with a hint of familiarity for the Jayhawks. After Duke senior captain Grayson Allen’s four perfect free throws in the penultimate minute pushed the Blue Devils ahead 72-69, Newman missed with 1:05 left, Bagley rebounded, Carter missed with 36 seconds left, 6-9 freshman Silvio De Sousa rebounded, and March had gone into franticness as only March can.
The ball wound up with Mykhailiuk at the right of the top of the key, and his shot sang its way through, tying the score, leaving the whole heaving occasion with the two shots that might hang on in memory.
With the seconds ticking more furiously than normal, the game distilled to Allen against Newman, one-on-one. Newman’s defense excelled. Allen’s move wasn’t bad. He wound up backing off at the left side of the lane and sending up a promising shot that could not seem to help itself from skittering around in fickleness and tantalizing all the spectators.
It rolled off, the horn sounded, and soon Allen’s fine and checkered four-year college career would conclude with him at his locker in a silent room, dutifully answering questions with a skill he had learned to master. “It’s way different than a [regular] loss,” he said, “because with a loss, you know you’ve got something else. There’s two parts in me, one still fighting” for the closing Final Four dream, “and the other, ‘Sorry, it’s done.’ That’s why it’s really hard to grasp.”
In between the fickle ball and that, the teams had insisted upon remaining tied, this time at 78-78, as the two-minute mark of overtime arrived. In tension, Kansas forged beauty. Graham kicked a pass to Vick amid the zone, and Vick, whom Newman credited rightly with “a great job in the middle,” never touched the ground in redirecting that thing hurriedly to the left corner to Newman. Newman had spent much of the game driving with an unafraid abandon because “Coach just told us to keep attacking the zone,” and by getting “paint touches, then the three-point line would open up.”
Here the three-point line opened up, and now he lofted one to try to put a pinnacle on his hot March and let Kansas lead and let Duke chase, let Duke fizzle on offense until the score became 85-78 and let Kansas’s heart both intensify and then leap, all of which happened after that prettiest of shots smashed down.
Other Elite Eight game coverage:
Known as pretty, Villanova is gritty in knocking out Texas Tech to reach Final Four
Ramble On: Loyola Chicago beats Kansas State to reach Final Four
Michigan grinds out victory as FSU’s Hamilton makes puzzling concession
Game delays Stormy Daniels interview on CBS
Sure, the Duke-Kansas game, with a trip to the Final Four on the line, was a highly anticipated event, but plenty of CBS viewers, starting at 7 p.m., were eagerly looking for something else altogether. That would be the “60 Minutes” interview with Stormy Daniels, who was set to tell all about her alleged affair with Donald Trump in 2006.
That show was set to air immediately after the game, but it ran a bit long — into overtime, in fact — leading to some unhappy viewers.
I cannot express how mad my grandmother is that a basketball game is preventing her from watching the Stormy Daniels interview HAHA — Annie (@Annie_2496) March 25, 2018
Kansas takes early lead in second half
Kansas went on an 11-3 run to start the second half, taking a five-point lead, and it has been able to mostly maintain that lead, with Duke mounting mini-runs but unable to re-take the lead as the game went to under 10 minutes. Duke forward Wendell Carter Jr. re-entered the contest at the 7:30 mark, despite his four fouls, while Kansas’s seven-footer, Udoka Azubuike, was also saddled with four fouls.
Tight start to high-profile matchup
The matchup of the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds pitted two of college basketball’s marquee programs against each other, and it was a fittingly tight start on CBS, with the lead seesawing back and forth, before the first half ended with Duke ahead of Kansas, 36-33. Those 20 entertaining minutes featured numerous ties and lead changes, but it also featured three personal fouls on Blue Devils forward Wendell Carter Jr., which could hamper his playing time in the second half.
Duke guard Trevon Duval, one of its many talented freshman, led all players with 13 points, while teammate Gary Trent Jr., another first-year player, chipped in with nine. Senior guard Devonte’ Graham paced Kansas with eight points, but his team was sloppy with the ball, committing eight turnovers to Duke’s four.
The Blue Devils also had six steals to the Jayhawks’ one, but neither team was able to shoot the ball well, particularly from three-point range, where Duke was 3 of 15, while Kansas was 4 of 14. The Jayhawks’ Malik Newman and Lagerald Vick combined to go 4 of 17 from the field.
“They’re playing their butts off, we’re playing our butts off,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski told CBS, as the teams headed to their locker rooms. “Hopefully we can keep it going.”
Duke’s biggest lead of the half was four points and the Jayhawks came right back with a six-point run that was good for a 27-25 lead with four minutes left. That lasted a little more than a minute, and then the lead went back and forth again.
Duke held a 22-19 lead about 12 minutes in thanks in part to eight Kansas turnovers.
***
The biggest question of the day might be whether CBS can get the Kansas-Duke game over quickly, in time for the network to cut to “60 Minutes” at its accustomed 7 p.m. Eastern start time. The program, you might have heard, features an interview with Stormy Daniels.
***
Pregame reading:
OMAHA — A common fan complaint in the one-and-done era is that those who fasten their gazes on an adored college basketball team no longer have the time to construct their adoration of players. A contrast of the ancient, four-year reality and the nouveau, one-year reality will happen Sunday afternoon here when two first-team consensus All-Americans reach the same court on opposing sides.
One is freshly 23, the other freshly 19. One will have played 141 college games in a steady climb to All-American. One will have played 37 games in an All-American spot that seemed deserved already in preseason.
By nightfall, one will depart the brackets.
Kansas might bid farewell to its beloved 23-year-old Devonte’ Graham, and in that case, the sentiment has had time to evolve across years, since the arrival of the 6-foot-2 guard with the gorgeous game in Lawrence in the long-ago days of 2014. Hear Coach Bill Self speak of Graham, and the words tell of uncommon appreciation and collaboration.
[ CBS’s Dana Jacobson asks a question Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton won’t answer ]
“I think his legacy is cemented right now,” Self said Saturday, “and he’ll go down as one of the all-time greats. He’ll have his jersey retired. He’s an All-American. He’s player of the year in our league. But more importantly than that, I think he’s the best intangible guy we’ve ever had here and has as good of leadership qualities as anybody I’ve ever coached. So he’s been the complete package as a player, and basically he’s a guy that I don’t think coaches get an opportunity to coach but every few years.”
Even though Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski clearly loves 19-year-old Marvin Bagley III and Bagley’s family, Krzyzewski won’t get the time to deepen the love with years of daily collaboration with the 6-foot-11 marvel with the rare mix of ginormous talent and ginormous will. Those unwieldy, spirited beasts, the NBA mock drafts, long since have been calling for Bagley to turn up in a high spot such as No. 1. As Bagley’s Duke plays Graham’s Kansas with a glut of terrific players joining them on the floor, Bagley arrives knowing this Final Four chance will be it.
“I think about that a lot,” Bagley said Saturday, showing how the days of let’s-wait-and-see answers have subsided in favor of the shouting truth. “But I wouldn’t say it’s pressure. We’re all in this thing together. So that’s one thing I know going into every game is that I’m not the only one experiencing this.”
Ask Duke fans if they would prefer three more seasons of watching and listening to and getting to sort-of-know Bagley, the way fans sort-of-know their stars, and the percentage of those saying yes would appear to be 100.00.
Simply the way Graham speaks demonstrates a familiarity sometimes found in the four-year players but near-impossible in the one-year. He has two prior Elite Eight exits to discuss, and says of younger teammates, “Even though they might not have been in the two games, they can feel how we feel.” Asked to pinpoint when Kansas’ seven-loss season turned around, Graham provides a clear-cut answer: that loss on Feb. 3 at home against Oklahoma State, on a weekend that invited decorated former players and celebrated the history-packed 120 years of Kansas basketball.
“After we lost to Oklahoma State at home, we just had a come-to-Jesus meeting, I would say, with the coaching staff, just looking at each other eye-to-eye,” Graham said, soon adding, “Oh man, that was one of the most awkward situations I’ve ever been in, ‘Coach’ blasting us in front of everybody and all the former players . . . It was awkward.”
He smiled his excellent smile.
With Bagley, whom the sport doesn’t know as well, the eye goes naturally to the talent. The collected stories of a life only 19 years going so far revert to eighth grade, as when Krzyzewski told how the famed NBA owner and executive Jerry Colangelo showed Krzyzewski a video of the Arizonan Bagley on his phone and said, “This kid is an eighth-grader.”
“I said, ‘He is?’” Krzyzewski said Saturday.
Self: “I remembered what everybody remembered (about Bagley), is that he’s different. He’s different. The thing that impressed me most about — and we tried to recruit Marvin, obviously, some — but the thing that impressed me most about him is to be more talented than everybody but also to play harder than everybody. He’s got a great motor. And that motor was in AAU ball. The motor was in high school. I’ve always thought that he played as hard as anybody, anytime I’ve ever watched him play. And then when you’re more talented and do that, then obviously that’s going to mean great things.”
Those great things will spend either one, two or three more games in college.
Schedule: No. 1 seed Kansas (30-7) and No. 2 seed Duke (29-7) will tip off at 5:05 p.m. Saturday on CBS.
[ Duke’s Grayson Allen on being a villain: ‘I own it now’ ]
How Kansas got here:
After a slow start the Jayhawks wore down No. 16 seed Penn in the first round, 76-60. Udoka Azubuike, the team’s 7-foot big man, played just three minutes due to a knee injury as the Jayhawks won their 12th straight NCAA tournament opener.
Malik Newman had 28 points and Azubuike was on the floor for 22 minutes as the Jayhawks outlasted No. 8 seed Seton Hall, 83-79. That put Kansas in the Sweet 16 for a third straight season. The win also gave Coach Bill Self the most NCAA tournament wins in school history.
Kansas seized a huge lead and then hung on for an 80-76 win over No. 5 seed Clemson. The Jayhawks were up by as many as 20 points before Clemson rallied late in the second half. This is the third year in a row Kansas has made it to the regional final as a No. 1 seed; both previous trips ended with Elite Eight losses.
How Duke got here:
Duke allowed No. 15 seed Iona to hang around for much of the first half before pouring it on in an 89-67 opening round win. Marvin Bagley III had 22 points and 7 rebounds for Duke.
Bagley did it again, recording 22 points and 9 rebounds in an 87-62 win over No. 7 seed Rhode Island. That gave Duke its 26th trip to the Sweet 16. The Post’s John Feinstein reflected after the win on Coach K’s extraordinary career.
The Blue Devils made their free throws down the stretch to hold off ACC rival and No. 11 seed Syracuse, 69-65. Bagley had 22 points for a third straight game. The win put Duke in the Elite Eight for the first time since it won the national championship in 2015. It’s the school’s 15th regional final appearance in Krzyzewski’s 38-year tenure. And the win allowed Bagley to keep showing his potential to NBA scouts.
Regular season results:
Kansas didn’t lose consecutive games after early-December losses to Washington and Arizona State. The Jayhawks won their 14th straight Big 12 regular season title, with Devonte’ Graham earning Big 12 player of the year honors and Bill Self tying for the league’s coach of the year award. Malik Newman earned the Big 12 newcomer of the year award after transferring from Mississippi State and then sitting out a season. Kansas finished 24-7 (13-5 in the Big 12), and won the league tournament to claim a No. 1 seed. Graham averaged 17.6 points, 7.2 assists and 4.0 rebounds in the regular season, while Newman was the tournament MVP after averaging 24 points in three games.
Duke’s early season included both impressive nonconference wins (over Michigan State and Florida) and peculiar ACC losses (to Boston College and N.C. State). The Blue Devils beat rival North Carolina to close the season, finishing with a 25-6 record (13-5 in the ACC) and earning the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament. A loss to the Tar Heels in the ACC semifinals sent Duke into this event as a No. 2 seed. Bagley averaged more than 20 points and nearly 12 rebounds a game, and became just the second ACC player to win both freshman of the year and player of the year honors, joining Jahlil Okafor. Wendell Carter Jr. nearly averaged a double-double, and was named second-team all-ACC.
More NCAA tournament coverage:
Leonard Hamilton mismanages the final minute as Michigan grinds past Florida State
Ramble On: Loyola Chicago beats Kansas State to reach Final Four
Only three 11-seeds had ever made a Final Four. Make room for Loyola Chicago.
NCAA broadcasts feed on the tears of young children, and critics have had enough
Jenkins: The secret to buzzer-beaters? It’s all in the (mental) release
Duke has national championship talent, but it won’t have a national championship season.
The Blue Devils are out of the NCAA tournament after an 85-81 overtime loss to Kansas in the Midwest regional final on Sunday in Omaha. There’s no shame in that result. Duke’s loaded with future NBA players, but Kansas is an elite recruiter with a great roster itself. The teams treated us to arguably the best game of this NCAA tournament.
Kansas looked to be pulling away in the opening 10 minutes of the second half. Duke led by three at the break, but Kansas went on a 15-5 run in 3:38 just after halftime. The seven-point deficit Duke faced at that point was its steepest of the tournament.
But this was a slugfest, and Duke hit back. The Blue Devils tied the game at 57 just inside the 10-minute-remaining mark, and it was clear at that point that the two blue-bloods would play the dramatic kind of game you hope for when teams like Duke and Kansas meet up in the Elite Eight. This wasn’t just one of the tournament’s greatest games, but the season’s.
Duke led by three in the final minute. Kansas’ Svi Mykhailiuk hit a game-tying three-pointer with 26 seconds left, and a shot at the buzzer by Allen missed narrowly:
That’s the play that will live in Duke fans’ nightmares.
Duke has incredible talent every year, and it will have unprecedented talent next season. (The class of 2018’s three highest-rated recruits are all committed to Mike Krzyzewski’s team.) But this team had all the tools it needed to hang Duke’s sixth national title banner.
This Duke team had the talent to overcome its flaws. But no one has the talent to guarantee victory against a team like Kansas in the Elite Eight.
The Blue Devils had a small handful of problems, but their talent was never one. Their starting lineup featured four freshman five-stars and a senior who was once a high four-star. Their top bench guys were blue-chip recruits, too. Their coach is at the top of his field.
Talent can cover for a lot of things. It can even cover for a weird inability to play good man-to-man defense with five future NBA players on the floor. Duke probably got a bit lucky to have its defensive numbers get so much better after Krzyzewski shifted to an unusual-for-him zone defense in February. The Blue Devils seemed to benefit from an awful lot of teams missing an awful lot of fairly open threes for an awful lot of games. But even as Duke seemed iffy on D, it was a top-10 team by opponent-adjusted defensive efficiency. The only team still alive in the tournament who rated better is Michigan. Maybe the Blue Devils were clunky and underachieving, but being huge and fast still makes it hard to get scored on.
Duke’s season ended by a whisker. If Duke were a few small notches better on defense, the Blue Devils probably would’ve won and headed for San Antonio. But I don’t think analysis of why Duke’s season is over now has to be much more complicated than, “This is the NCAA tournament, and Kansas is really good, and Duke lost what was basically a coin-flip game.”
Duke lost, but it wasn’t indicative of anything that serious.
For instance, this doesn’t add up:
The narrative that you cannot win a national title with a team of comprised of primarily one-and-done's remains valid. Duke came close, but again came up short. — Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 25, 2018
(Teams have won national titles in the recent past with freshmen driving the boat on both offense and defense. If Allen’s shot at the buzzer goes down, we’re not discussing this.)
The clearest reason for Duke’s defeat:
Kansas is good. It’s hard to beat a No. 1 seed in March Madness.
That’s the only thing that’s inarguable. It could be true that if Duke’s defense were a little better, the Blue Devils would’ve been a No. 1 seed and had a better location or matchup for this game, and maybe that would’ve led to another result. Maybe Kansas would’ve scored one or two fewer key buckets, and maybe Duke would’ve won. Who knows?
But if Duke builds an identical team next year, it might win the title that time.
No other college basketball team’s failures inspire so many people to dissect what went wrong so meticulously. But this Duke team was really good. It was No. 3 in the country in Ken Pomeroy’s rating, the product of being No. 2 on offense and No. 9 on defense. The Blue Devils had the athletic upside to be the No. 1 team in the country on any given night. This was an objectively fun Duke team that had great players, just as will be next year’s, and the year after’s, and the year after that’s. It’s just that winning a 68-team tournament is hard.
Kansas 85, Duke 81 (OT), FINAL: Malik Newman took over in extra time, scoring all 13 points for Kansas in overtime, sending the Jayhawks to their 15th Final Four. Newman scored 32 points in the win for Kansas, who will face Villanova in the Final Four.
Duke was leading by a point when Wendell Carter fouled out with 2:49 remaining. Kansas ended the game on a 10-5 run to close out the win.
Overtime
Kansas 81, Duke 78, 0:56.5: It looked like Duke was getting the ball back after this emphatic referee call, but it was overturned upon replay review:
Kansas 81, Duke 78, 1:39: Malik Newman has all nine points so far in overtime for Kansas, including a pair of three-pointers. The sophomore has a game-high 28 points to go along with seven rebounds.
Start of OT: Azubuike has fouled out for Kansas, while Wendell Carter opens the extra period with four fouls for Duke. Carter had seven points and two rebounds all with those four fouls in the final 7:30 of regulation.
Second half
Duke 72, Kansas 72, end of regulation: Grayson Allen came sooooo close to sending Duke to the Final Four with his shot at the end of regulation.
GOODNESS GRACIOUS. Grayson Allen was a slight roll away from becoming a Duke Icon. pic.twitter.com/NxLqC3465s — CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 25, 2018
Duke 72, Kansas 72, 0:25.7: There have been six lead changes in the final six minutes of the game. Udoka Azubuike fouled out with 1:59 left, but not before giving us this back end of a nifty alley oop:
One shining moment, 1:59:
Duke 68, Kansas 67, 3:20:Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk was involved in a pair of possession changes thanks to his feet on the line, one a turnover on the baseline and the other trying to corral a tipped rebounds near midcourt. Duke responded to the first with a three-pointer.
“Mykhailiuk’s gotta get smaller sneakers,” joked Bill Raftery on CBS.
Duke 64, Kansas 62, 5:50: Wendell Carter returned with those four fouls with 7:30 remaining and paid immediate dividends with a three-point play that brought Duke back into the lead.
Kansas 53, Duke 50, 11:43: Wendell Carter picked up his fourth foul and exited with 16:06 and the Blue Devils down seven. Duke cut the deficit to one with a pair of threes but Lagerald Vick responded with a three of his own. Vick has 12 points, including eight in the first eight minutes of the second half. The Jayhawks got into some foul trouble of their own with Udoka Azubuike picking up his fourth foul as well, at the 11:43 mark.
Kansas 44, Duke 39, 16:25: The Jayhawks came out firing on an 11-3 run to start the second half, grabbing the lead. Kansas made 4-of-5 from the field to open the half, including 3-for-4 on threes.
Halftime
Duke 36, Kansas 33:
Duke guard Trevon Duval was the best player on the floor in the first half. Duval leads all scorers with 13 points and is the only player on either side in double figures. Both teams are tossing up bricks from three (Duke at 3/15, Kansas at 4/14), but they’re having some success around the basket. That Kansas is going pretty much stride-for-stride with Duke is a positive, because the Jayhawks had center Udoka Azubuike, a key rim-protector, on the bench for nine of the opening 20 minutes in foul trouble. We’re likely to have a dramatic finish.
First half
Duke 30, Kansas 29, 2:39: We’ve got a slugfest. Duke’s been just slightly ahead for most of the game. The Blue Devils have led for 11:16 to the Jayhawks’ 1:30 so far, but we’ve already seen seven lead changes. You get the impression that this game will go to the wire.
Duke 22, Kansas 19, 7:04: This is a really fun basketball game, even though the shooting’s been bad. Duke point guard Trevon Duval has emerged with seven early points.
Duke 15, Kansas 14, 10:48: So far, both teams have scored with balance. Just one player in the entire game, Kansas’ Svi Mykhailiuk, has more than four points. (He has six.)
Duke 7, Kansas 6, 15:38: There’s been some good action in the opening minutes. Neither team’s shooting all that well, which is a surprise given the brilliant offenses both of these teams have. Both are hovering around 30 percent from the field early. Those numbers will go up considerably by the time this game’s over, in all likelihood.
Preview by Matt Ellentuck
The Kansas Jayhawks may be the weakest No. 1 seed of the tournament, but they’re also just one of two that remain in the Elite Eight. The wins might not have been pretty, but Kansas beat No. 16 seed Penn by 16 points, then edged out close four-point wins over No. 8 Seton Hall and No. 5 Clemson. Wins are wins, but now they’ll face their toughest opponent of the tournament, the Duke Blue Devils.
Coach K’s team rolled past No. 15 Iona and No. 7 Rhode Island by a combined 47 points. Syracuse hung around in the Sweet 16, only losing by four points, but the game always felt like it was in the Blue Devils’ hands.
Duke and Kansas didn’t play each other during the season, but both have stacked impressive wins over the course of the year. Both also have seniors who want top go out on top.
Grayson Allen won a championship two years ago as a reserve, but in his final year he’ll try to win as the face of the program. Big 12 Player of the Year Devonte’ Graham hasn’t won a title yet with the Jayhawks, and this is his last chance to achieve what he’s been working towards.
No. 1 Kansas vs. No. 2 Duke
Date: March 25
Time: 5:05 p.m.
TV: CBS
Live Stream: March Madness Live
Duke nearly took Kansas out in regulation, missing two late attempts, including one by Grayson Allen that rolled around the rim before falling out as time expired. Kansas dominated overtime behind Malik Newman who finished with 32 points.
Duke finishes the season 29-8 having advanced farther than any ACC team other than surprising Florida State.
This was a fascinating game in many respects. Each team countered the other’s tactics intelligently with neither side able to gain a significant advantage. Duke limited Udoka Azubuike to nine and Devonte Graham to 11.
Kansas did a solid job on Marvin Bagley and especially Wendell Carter inside for most of the game and Carter was particularly frustrated. He picked up two early fouls and then a third and he never got in a rhythm. He didn’t get a rebound until quite late in the game. Carter finished with 10 points, most of them quite late, but just two rebounds. He fouled out and only got 22 minutes. The other four starters got at least 43 each.
Kansas doubled Bagley as often as possible, greatly limiting his inside game. He finished with a double-double - 16 points and 10 boards - but Kansas certainly limited his effectiveness.
Duke managed to keep pace partly due to an outstanding overall game by Trevon Duval. The freshman guard was exceptionally alert and penetrated consistently, finishing with 20 points, six assists, two steals and four turnovers.
Although Gary Trent was not hitting from three point range, the freshman finished with 17 on 7-18 on the floor.
Senior Grayson Allen finished his career hitting 3-13. He came really close to hitting the game winner in regulation on a twisting move in the lane...but the ball rolled around the rim twice and rimmed out.
Anyone who’s played at all has seen a shot like that. It’s just too bad it came at the end.
Kansas just owned overtime completely, thanks to Newman, who scored all 13 Jayhawk points in the extra frame.
Duke kept up until he hit a three with 1:51 left to push Kansas out in front 81-78. He hit four more free throws down the stretch. Duke meanwhile just made too many mistakes to deserve to win.
In the end, Duke ran into the same problem it ran into in most of its losses: more experienced and tougher teams knew what to do in these types of games. Duke’s freshmen are gifted - wildly gifted really - but you can’t replicate experience. When you look at the Final Four - Michigan, Loyola, Villanova and Kansas - they’re all vastly more experienced than Duke. It’s just very tough to get past that imbalance. Talent is critical, but obviously, it’s not everything.
So it’s Season’s End. We’re sure that Bagley and Carter are off to the draft and it won’t surprise if Trent and Duval follow them. We’ll see soon who’s back and where things go from here. It’s been a fun season with such a dynamic pair of big men and we’ll follow them in the NBA with great interest.
Finally, a word for Kansas. People have doubted that team all year long. We have at times. It had a thin roster and injuries, yet it just perservered. It’s a very tough group and we expect they’ll do well in the Final Four. Certainly they are deserving regional champions and we congratulate them for a tremendously impressive win over Duke. Well done, Jayhawks.
And in particular we’d like to congratulate Raleigh native Graham. We’ve followed him since he was at Broughton High and he’s grown tremendously. We couldn’t be happier for him.
