LAHAINA, Hawaii -- A trademark of Duke's championship teams over the years has been their ability to make free throws in the clutch to carry themselves to victory. Monday evening in the Lahaina Civic Center, the Blue Devils' free-throw shooting was a mere 55.6 percent, but All-American guard Jason Williams hit the big one when it counted most.
Faced with two shots with 7.1 seconds remaining, Williams came up short on his first free throw, but sank the second, his game-high 27th point of the night, to give Duke (1-0) its final advantage of 80-79. A last-second heave by Seton Hall (1-1) was stolen by the Blue Devil junior as time ticked off, giving Duke its first victory of the season.
"After the first free throw, I just wanted the second one to go in," Williams said of his tenuous last-second situation. "We always practice those game type of situations in practice, but being in the game itself... I was happy it went in. And I'm happy we made a great defensive play at the end to just to make sure we won the game."
Up until the final seconds, the defending champs' victory seemed very much in doubt. No. 1 Duke took a 76-72 lead on a free throw by Mike Dunleavy with 3:51 remaining, but the Pirates, as they had done all night, responded with a flurry of buckets to retake the lead a minute-and-a-half later when John Allen made a layup to take a 78-76 lead.
Thirty seconds later, with Seton Hall up by one at 79-78, Dunleavy again stepped to the line and sank 1-of-2 free throws to knot the game with just 1:05 remaining. Allen missed two shots in the next 50 seconds, allowing Williams to take the ball and draw the all-important foul on Greg Morton, which Seton Hall coach Louis Orr believed was an offensive charge, not a defensive blocking foul as the referees called.
"The last play was basically our last gasp on the charge--well what I thought was a charge," Orr said. "It's a judgment call and the referee called the block, but that was game. We get the charge, we get the ball."
Luckily for Orr, throughout the first half, the Pirates were getting many calls. Two Duke big men--Carlos Boozer and Nick Horvath--were saddled with three fouls and the team as a whole committed 10 fouls less than 13 minutes into the game. Obviously disrupted by the frequent whistles of the officials and the attempts by the Pirates to slow the game down, the Blue Devils shot an atrocious 1-of-13 from three-point range and a well-below-average 31.4 percent overall.
Meanwhile, the Pirates were clicking on all cylinders, executing their slowdown game plan to perfection and opening a nine-point lead at 27-18 with 6:49 left in the first half. After a Duke run put the game within two at 29-27 with 2:17 on the clock, Seton Hall exploded at the end of the half, scoring eight straight points on three-pointers by Raheem Carter and Desmond Herod and a layup by senior Charles Manga. At halftime, the Pirates led 37-30, paced by Herod's 12 points.
"They outplayed us in the first half and I thought neither team outplayed each other in the second half," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "For us, we were knocked back by them.... We just didn't look like a real good team... And Seton Hall just made us look worse."
Guard Andre Barrett, who scored 12 points on the evening, felt the first half was indicative of a solid overall effort by the Pirates.
"Our team played well throughout the whole game," Barrett said. "Nobody really expected us to stay in the game with them. We shocked a lot of people and we showed what a good team we really are."
By fighting off the Pirates' challenge in the tit-for-tat style of play in the second half, the Blue Devils also proved their worth as one of the nation's top teams. However, guard Mike Dunleavy was not prepared to say that this year's Duke team has reached its championship equivalent of last season.
"Right now, it's not comparable. You don't worry about that because it's something we accomplished last year," said Dunleavy who scored 24 points and came up with two huge rebounds at the end of the game. "Right now, I think everybody can tell you that we have a few things to work on. We're not near that team last year. Do we have the potential? Possibly. It's just a matter of time of getting used to playing with new guys."
Note: Duke guard Chris Duhon was taken to the hospital after the game after suffering severe leg cramps that spread throughout his body in the locker room following the contest. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski was unsure of Duhon's status for tomorrow's matchup against South Carolina.
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