With 55.2 seconds left, a female Virginia fan wearing a giant mustard bottle costume held up a sign that said "Duke doesn't cut the mustard."
At that point, the Blue Devils led 61-59, but they were on the ropes. They had led 59-51 with 3:42 to play, but Virginia was on an 8-2 run. Brand-new John Paul Jones Arena was rocking and rolling, and Duke's players looked rattled. Head coach Mike Krzyzewski took back-to-back timeouts, trying to calm his young team.
In the next 55.2 seconds, the Blue Devils would have to answer one question: Could they cut the mustard in a tight game in a hostile environment?
The short answer: No. Duke lost.
The long answer: Maybe.
Yes, the Blue Devils failed to register a field goal during the last 3:42 of regulation and during all five minutes of overtime. Yes, the Cavaliers erased the Blue Devils' 13-point first half lead, their eight-point advantage with 3:42 in regulation and their six-point cushion with 2:05 to go in the fourth.
Yes, in the last 3:42 of regulation, Duke turned the ball over twice, missed one free throw and two shots in the paint. Yes, the Blue Devils put the Cavaliers on the line three times-for six points-in that final stretch of regulation. And yes, Duke let a game slip away in which Virginia never held a second-half lead.
"We have to put teams away and protect our leads," forward Josh McRoberts said. "We were up [13] at some point and we let them back into it. When you put yourselves in that position, bad things are going to happen, and that's what happened to us."
All of that is true, but so is this: Duke could have won. With one less unlucky bounce here, or a quarter of an inch there, Duke would have won a game in which it did so many things wrong down the stretch. For everything they did wrong, the Blue Devils put themselves into position to win.
"We took good shots," Krzyzewski said of Duke's game-ending field goal drought. "We just didn't hit them."
On the last play of regulation, forward Josh McRoberts held the ball at the top of the key with 10 seconds to play. He drove, spinning into the lane and got a good one-handed shot off, but it bounced off the inside of the rim and out.
And on the last play of the game, the Blue Devils had one second to go 94 feet and score. Under those circumstances, point guard Greg Paulus' catch-and-shoot three-pointer from just behind the line-a shot that hit the back rim and bounced away-was a great look off a perfectly executed play.
If either of those shots goes in, Duke wins-despite making just one field goal over the last 8:42 of the game.
And the two biggest made shots for Virginia-Sean Singletary's 15-footer with a hand in his face that tied the game with 24 seconds left in regulation and his driving, falling, body-horizontal-to-the-floor, high-arcing fadeaway jumper with one second to play-were tough, tough shots.
Maybe it's just JPJ Arena magic-after all, the Cavaliers are 11-1 with wins over Arizona, Gonzaga and, now, Duke in the building's two-and-a-half month lifetime.
But that is probably sugar-coating the truth a little bit too much. It is a problem that the Blue Devils could not make a field goal for the last eight-plus minutes of the game.
Like McRoberts said, the best teams do not put themselves into a situation in which unlucky bounces can cost them a game. The best teams take that 13-point, first-half lead and blow their opponents out in the second half. Then, the JPJ Arena crowd never would get rowdy, and Singletary never would have the chance to hit impossible shots.
But this team is not the best team. On the road, in a hostile environment against a good team, Duke may have to get lucky to win.
And tonight, the Blue Devils could not cut the mustard.
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