A frustrated Paul Hewitt summed up his team’s 86-67 loss in just four words: “Free throws and threes.”
An efficient Duke offense that made it to the line 36 times in 40 minutes and took advantage of open looks from deep disrupted the Yellow Jackets from the tipoff. No. 21 Georgia Tech converted on just six attempts from the free throw line in the first half despite getting to the line 14 times and missed on the front end of two one-and-ones. And as the Yellow Jackets struggled to take advantage of opportunities from the charity stripe, they got into foul trouble early as well. Forward Gani Lawal picked up two fouls in the first 33 seconds of the game and freshman Derrick Favors had three fouls of his own. Both players were limited to six minutes each in the first half, and in the absence of the talented duo of post players, No. 10 Duke outrebounded Georgia Tech 27-15 and found itself 12 points ahead at the break.
“We felt like if we could have had it to single digits going into halftime, we thought our pressure was wearing them down, that we’d have a chance,” Hewitt said. “But we didn’t do what we had to do. We didn’t play well tonight. I’m very disappointed in our effort.”
Physical play—as senior guard Jon Scheyer pointed out after the game—forced the referees to continue to blow the whistle throughout the contest. By the end of regulation, the two teams had combined for 52 fouls and 64 free throw attempts.
“You know its going to be a physical game like most games in the ACC,” Scheyer said. “We prepare for that and we feel like we’re physical too. There were a lot of fouls called tonight and there should have been.... We put [the referees] in a position where they had to make foul calls.”
And then there were the threes. After the first half in which the Blue Devils made 6-of-9 3-pointers, Hewitt told his team that if Duke continued to shoot that well from deep—and went 6-of-9 on 3-point attempts once again—his team wouldn’t stand a chance to win. His words proved prophetic. The Blue Devils finished the game 12-of-18 from behind the arc, including junior Kyle Singler’s finest shooting performance of the season in which he made 8-of-10 shots from long range en route to 30 points, a career high.
The Blue Devil coaching staff recently tweaked the team’s attack in hopes that the junior would respond positively to a motion offense with non-predictable movement and frequent screens set by teammates. But just like any player in what some might call a slump, continued shot attempts—regardless of whether or not they went in—proved to be the only way to break out.
“[The motion offense] helped him catch it strong,” Krzyzewski said. “Then, whatever his talents are should take over, and he took over. That is not coaching, that is him. But I thought he was moving better and got the ball…. He was open a lot, because it is not predictable movement.”
The other two of Duke’s top three scorers helped Singler to once again shoulder the offensive burden. Scheyer added 21 points—including 2-for-4 shooting from deep—and Nolan Smith put in a 14-point effort. The three combined for all but 21 points of the Duke offense—that is, over 75 percent of the Blue Devils’ attack.
Duke converted on 24 shots from the free throw line and shot 67 percent from deep, and senior Lance Thomas’s efforts on the boards provided his team with second chance opportunities. Five of the forward’s 11 rebounds came on the offensive end of the floor and the Blue Devils scored 20 second-chance points. On the other end, Thomas spent a great deal of the game chasing around Zachery Peacock, who went scoreless after opening up the game with the Yellow Jackets’ first 11 points.
“Lance did a real good job tonight,” Krzyzewski said. “The obvious story is Kyle [Singler], [and] the hidden story is Lance. He was very good for us tonight, and he has been.”
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