COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- With 13:10 left in the second half, Chris Duhon came off a screen at the top left center of the arc, received a pass from J.J. Redick and nailed an important three for the struggling Blue Devils.
With the score Duke crawled within one of Maryland, 57-56, and I made a big asterisk in my notes. Making the mark, I guessed, albeit incorrectly, that Duhon's shot would be the beginning of a patented Duke run.
Despite his comparative low scoring, the junior literally picks his time to make shots. It happens about twice a game, and like most other things on the court, he's pretty subtle about it. But for some reason, as soon as it looks like Georgetown, Virginia or in this case Maryland are about to deliver the straw to break the young Blue Devils' back, here comes Duhon making one of his few shots on the day.
Here I figured it was just a long range variation on the same situation.
A few minutes and four missed trey's later, I again looked at my notes.
No Duke run. Maryland's lead creeps to 10.
A couple more minutes, same situation. Terps sneak to 71-57.
Two more minutes down--nothing. No run. No field goals. Nothing.
The only points Duke scored were a few free throws, and even then the Blue Devils were doing well if they went 1-for-2.
At the 7:19 mark, Dahntay Jones finally hit a layup breaking the nearly six-minute long field goal drought.
"We didn't take good shots, and when you shoot bad shots its hard to rebound," Duhon said. "Everything went wrong for us tonight. I guess it happens--it shouldn't happen, but we have to learn from it."
Despite whatever the dejected Blue Devils may have learned about themselves both personally and as a team, the numbers don't lie. And thanks to the numbers, the rest of the college basketball world now has the same opinion they have had about other Duke teams: They have no inside presence, and they live and die by the three.
Duke's inside, a committee of Nick Horvath, Shavlik Randolph, Casey Sanders, Shelden Williams, and in this game Michael Thompson, was fairly terrible.
They allowed Maryland's Ryan Randle to down 17 boards, they missed easy layups, and for a while it looked like they were in close competition with the guards to see who could hack more Terrapins.
"The numbers speak for themselves," Randolph said. "They totally outplayed us."
As far as their shooting goes, the Blue Devils will be the first tell you they stunk out the Comcast Center so bad in the second half that it no longer has that "new building smell" everyone loved. In the final 20 Duke shot 33 percent from the floor, 15 percent from behind the arc and 39 percent from the line.
The first number is okay--worse if you take away Jones' and company's late, junk layups when the Terps weren't playing as tough. The second number's wretched, but the third is abysmal: Under 40 percent from the line, after hitting 37-of-40 the game before.
In short, Shaq averages nearly 20 percentage points better, and he's only one player--Duke put up this number as a team.
"They just played better than we did," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "They deserved to win. I don't think there was one turning point, or anything like that, I just think they played harder and better than we did."
Yes, the Terps played better. Yes, the numbers speak for themselves. Yes, the post-game criticism of Duke is dead on--as Krzyzewski has said all season that he's "coached No. 1 teams and this is not one of them."
But for some reason, the Blue Devils chose this game to display all their Achilles Heels in one rough second act.
Maybe it was the atmosphere--4,000 students out for blood, sporting shirts that say "F--k Duke" and sitting behind Duke's second half basket in an almost completely vertical area called "the wall" can be intimidating for anyone.
Although the freshman might have had some problems with the mental game, the veterans should have simply been thankful not to be in the projectile haven of Cole Field House.
They should have seen "the wall," realized it was going to be a long second half and stepped up to the challenge.
Instead, for 20 minutes of basketball, Duke came out flat and played completely uninspired. They did nothing to answer their most accurate criticism--the young Blue Devils are untested and incredibly beatable, especially away from home.
Even more miffed was Krzyzewski, who said he couldn't figure out why his team started the second half poorly after ending the first half in the best possible manner.
"We showed no confidence, no togetherness and no enthusiasm at all," Duhon agreed.
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