#

Game commentary

#

Questions, excuses abound in men's basketball failure**

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.--The story has become eerily familiar: The men's basketball team begins an Atlantic Coast Conference game and obtains a convincing first-half lead. Then somehow in the second half, a Duke lead turns into its opponents' victory.

Saturday afternoon, Virginia (7-5, 2-2 in the ACC) became the fourth team in Duke's first four conference games to overcome an early-game deficit and capture a 77-66 win over the Blue Devils (9-6, 0-4 in the ACC).

"We need to do a better job of executing at the end of the game," senior guard Chris Collins said. "It basically came down to us playing one-on-one, and against a good defensive team, they're going to do a good job against that. We need to try to get better and get back to the practice floor and do what we can do to be a better basketball team."

Duke fell in its first three ACC games to Clemson, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest. In each game, the Blue Devils lead by at least 12 points before eventually caving in during the second half.

"We basically maintained the level that we were playing in the first half, and Virginia picked it up in the second half and that's where they beat us, right there," junior center Greg Newton said. "They picked up the intensity and we stayed right where we were."

Head coach Mike Krzyzewski was quick to point out the Cavaliers' physical intensity, especially in the second half, and attributed UVa's defense with stopping the Blue Devils near the end of the game.

"To their credit, I thought they played harder than we did in the second half and that's why they won," Krzyzewski said. "I thought they picked it up a notch defensively so that we wouldn't get something good... There's some really good plays that we made but then I thought their intensity picked up a notch and that's what won it for them."

While the loss may have left the Blue Devils with even more questions than before, UVa felt fortunate to end up with a victory after the game. The Cavaliers have struggled in its early conference games, much like their Blue Devil counterparts.

"To say that this was a good win for us I think would be an understatement," UVa head coach Jeff Jones said. "It's great to see that our team responded by playing what could be our best game of the year... There's still a lot more that we can do, but we're just happy to have the win, to see ourselves playing better and hopefully we can pick up here and move on and keep improving."

Surely by this point of the season, especially after last year's 2-14 ACC campaign, Blue Devil fans are tired are hearing the excuses about not winning. It is still early, but so far the only answer the players can give about why they haven't been able to come through in the clutch is an abstract lack of intensity.

"Our intensity level just dropped," sophomore forward Ricky Price said. "We played the same throughout the game. This can't happen. When they picked it up defensively and offensively in the second half, we need to counter that and respond and pick it up also and we didn't do that."

Newton, who managed to score just eight points and grab a mere six boards against the Cavaliers, minced few words when expressing the solution to Duke's woes.

"We have to play 40 minutes," Newton said. "And if we don't do that, we're going to keep getting our butts kicked."

And if and when the Blue Devils manage to find 40 minutes of basketball without the breakdowns which have plagued the team so far in the conference, they won't have to worry about finding any more excuses to explain those second-half lapses.