JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In a contest typified by physical defense and poor shooting, it was ironically two dunks that provided the bookends to Duke’s Sunday night victory over California in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
With just over eight minutes to go in the first half, Miles Plumlee came off a screen set for Nolan Smith and found himself with an open lane to the basket. When Smith’s alley-oop pass was slightly long, Plumlee gracefully adjusted, grabbing the ball behind his head and slamming it home in one fluid motion.
That dunk spurred a 13-3 Blue Devil run before which No. 1 seed Duke (31-5) was only up three on a scrappy California team thanks to some poor shooting.
But after that moment, the Blue Devils ran away from the eighth-seeded Golden Bears (24-11) thanks to virtuoso performances by both Smith and Brian Zoubek, whose own rather enthusiastic dunk (again off a Smith assist) with just less than four minutes to go in the second half gave Duke a 19-point lead. That play punctuated the Blue Devils’ 68-53 victory over California and Duke’s second straight trip to the Sweet 16.
“Getting the dunk felt great,” Zoubek said. “I knew that was a big point in the game where we just created a little separation there.”
In arguably his best performance since he scored 16 points and grabbed 17 rebounds against Maryland more than two months ago, Zoubek was a perfect 6-for-6 from the field and scored 14 points to go with 13 rebounds.
Smith, though, was the real catalyst for the Blue Devils on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. Besides assisting on both momentum-building dunks, the junior led the game with 20 points on 9-of-18 shooting, contained the Golden Bears’ top scoring threat in Jerome Randle and played all 40 minutes of the game.
“Nolan, especially at the end of the clock, is our go-to guy,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “He’s been our on-the-ball defender the whole year, so he’s scoring and defending on the ball. That was a marvelous performance by Nolan.”
Indeed, the Blue Devils needed scoring from Zoubek and Smith, the players Krzyzewski called his team’s “unsung heroes,” on a night when stars Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer had trouble converting open shots. Scheyer was 1-for-11 on the night, including 1-for-8 from beyond the arc, while Singler was 1-for-6 from 3-point territory despite shooting 50 percent overall.
It was that subpar shooting that allowed California to stick with the Blue Devils for most of the first half, even though Duke’s ferocious defense forced the Golden Bears into seven turnovers. California had only three assists in the first half, and its offense devolved into a series of one-on-one drives and contested jumpers, prompting more than one frustrated fan to angrily shout “Pass the ball!” at the Golden Bears.
After Plumlee’s reverse alley-oop, California missed seven of its next eight shots, including numerous ill-advised attempts by Theo Robertson and Patrick Christopher. That stretch ended when Golden Bear head coach Mike Montgomery called timeout after a Zoubek tip-in put Duke up 12 with under four minutes to go in the first half, and the Blue Devils never led by less than seven the rest of the way.
“We played an outstanding defensive game tonight against a championship team,” Krzyzewski said. “I thought the discipline that we had defensively was the difference in the ball game…. The kids played a beautiful defensive game.”
Despite that exceptional defense, though, the Golden Bears made a run in the second half, scoring eight straight points after the 16:54 mark thanks to some difficult 3-point shots by Randle and Robertson.
Zoubek, though, answered the bell with back-to-back baskets to end that run, and two more baskets by Smith and Singler put Duke back up comfortably by 15.
“Zoubs was huge for us throughout the game, especially at that time,” Krzyzewski said. “We went to run motion and Brian got two big buckets.”
In a weekend filled with upsets, the Blue Devils were able to survive a disappointing shooting performance by turning to what has defined this team—defense and rebounding. And in order to survive another game—Duke’s next contest will be against Robbie-Hummel-less Purdue in Houston—the Blue Devils will need to continue their stalwart effort on the defensive end of the court.
But a few more game-changing dunks won’t hurt, either.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.