After dropping out of the top four in the ACC in the last two weeks of the season, Duke is heading to the conference tournament a day earlier than expected and in need of an unprecedented run to bring home its first title in six years.
The fifth-seeded Blue Devils open play at the Barclays Center in New York Wednesday at 2 p.m. against No. 12 seed Clemson, with a gauntlet awaiting Thursday and Friday if they beat the Tigers. This is the second straight year Duke has missed out on a double bye in the ACC tournament—the Blue Devils got bounced in the quarterfinals last year, and no team has ever won four games in four days to win the title.
A win Wednesday would possibly secure a top-four seed in the NCAA tournament for Duke, and put the Blue Devils in good position to stay close to home in Greenville, S.C., for the tournament’s first weekend.
“We’re a good team, and we have to believe that. We’ve had a rough stretch where we just dropped a lot of close games,” graduate student Amile Jefferson said after the team’s loss at North Carolina Saturday. “Going forward, everything is in the past. Everything we’ve done is in the past. It’s about right now.”
Clemson (17-14) gave Duke all it could handle at Cameron Indoor Stadium Feb. 11, eventually falling 64-62 when Shelton Mitchell could not get a clean shot off on the Tigers’ last possession.
It was one of nine ACC games Clemson lost by six points or fewer, but it finally started to close games with three straight wins against the conference’s bottom-feeders heading into Wednesday’s contest. After knocking off N.C. State and Boston College to finish out the regular season, head coach Brad Brownell’s team ran past the Wolfpack 75-61 Tuesday afternoon.
The Tigers are still searching for their first win of the year against a ranked ACC opponent, and a deep run this week could put them back in the NCAA tournament conversation. If the Blue Devils do not match Clemson’s energy coming off a few days of rest and fall victim to the defensive lapses that made their first meeting close in the second half, they could fail to reach the quarterfinals for the first time in 10 years.
“Our record is 0-0 now,” freshman Jayson Tatum said. “That’s how we’ve got to look at it.... It’s going to be tough, but I definitely think that we can do anything.”
All-ACC forward Jaron Blossomgame was shut down by senior Matt Jones in the Tigers’ first matchup with the Blue Devils (23-8) but still averages 17.3 points per game, and Mitchell has scored in double figures in every game since pouring in a career-high 23 against Duke.
Sophomore Luke Kennard led the way with 25 points in 36 minutes in that contest, which actually matched his lowest minute total in February. The 14th-ranked Blue Devils have played 12 straight games decided by 10 points or, forcing their starters into heavy workloads, and a blowout win for the first time in two months would be just what the doctor ordered heading into the rest of the week.
Junior Grayson Allen still does not appear close to 100 percent due to a left ankle injury, and Jefferson has looked better the last two weeks but continues to battle a lingering right-foot bone bruise that kept him out of two games in January. If head coach Mike Krzyzewski has the luxury of using a deep rotation Wednesday afternoon, it would benefit all of Duke’s stars.
“We have to play back-to-back-to-back days and we have to take care of our bodies, but at the same time, we can’t take any game lightly,” Kennard said. “Whoever we play, we can’t take any plays off.”
With Allen’s minutes up for grabs, freshman Frank Jackson emerged late in the year with at least 15 points in each of Duke’s last three games, and Clemson does not have the size to exploit the Blue Devils’ lack of depth in the post. But their biggest weakness could be exploited soon later in the week.
If Duke prevails Wednesday, No. 4 seed Louisville awaits at the same time Thursday. The 10th-ranked Cardinals present a tough matchup for the Blue Devils due to their physicality and will be well-rested, and if Duke finds a way to get past that test, it would likely meet up with another big team in top-seeded North Carolina during Friday’s semifinals.
With the ACC as deep as ever, it appears unlikely this will be the year a team pulls off four tough wins in four days—especially in the Blue Devils’ brutal half of the bracket—but a win or two in Brooklyn would give Duke some momentum heading into the Big Dance.
“We are getting better,” Krzyzewski said. “We just have to keep going and try to do a great job in Brooklyn and then be ready for the big tournament the week after.”
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