Duke 69, West Virginia 55, 3:55 to go in the second half: The neutrals are filing out of the stadium now, and for good reason: This game has lost a lot of its energy in the last four minutes as the Blue Devils have squeezed the life out of West Virginia. Duke fans, though, couldn't be happier.
Unless this one gets tight late, we're done on The Chronicle's Sports Blog, but visit www.dukechronicle.com for postgame analysis and a look ahead to Monday's national championship game against the hometown Butler Bulldogs.
Duke 67, West Virginia 52, 6:32 to go in the game: Duke's up 15, and this Final Four game now looks like just about every ACC game the Blue Devils won during the season. Duke built itself a comfortable but not overwhelming lead early on and has held onto it throughout, and West Virginia has shown no signs that it can break off a big run and make this a game again. With Butler seemingly out for good, it would take an epic Blue Devil collapse for this one to get close again.
UPDATE II: CBS Sports analyst Greg Anthony just tweeted that Da'Sean Butler's injury may be an ACL tear in his left knee. We have nothing to add at this point, except that Butler had finally started to get involved in the game at the time of his injury.
Tonight's announced attendance, by the way, is 71,298, although that number has to have been counted at the end of the Butler-Michigan State game, because there are thousands of empty seats now.
UPDATE: On his way off the court, Butler was dragging one of his feet (it's hard to tell from the other side of the court exactly what happened) and he was carried straight down the tunnel into the locker room.
Duke 58, West Virginia 44, 11:44 to go in the second half: Well, Nolan's just fine. Forget that little nugget.
That aforementioned Plumlee dunk was called off, and the sophomore was hit with a technical foul, marking a four-point swing in the game. But Duke responded well, keeping the lead in double-digits with tough defense and good defensive rebounding, plus an absolutely critical Jon Scheyer 3-pointer in Wellington Smith's face. Poor Wellington.
West Virginia's Da'Sean Butler is on the ground in pain and holding his face; he crashed into Brian Zoubek and was called for a charge, but it's clear that Butler took the worst of the collision.
Duke 58, West Virginia 44, 11:44 to go in the second half: Duke hasn't made a habit of blowing leads this season, and the Blue Devils don't seem inclined to blow this one either. Every time West Virginia closes in to within six or seven, Duke has been able to come up with a big shot, whether it's a Nolan Smith baseline jumper, a Zoubek layup or a Scheyer dagger from the corner. The Mountaineers got within five once, at 43-38, but that seems like a long time ago. Still, there are ages left in this game if you're a Duke fan.
After the last play—a confusing putback dunk from Miles Plumlee that appears not to count because he hung on the rim for a moment, a call Krzyzewski is furious about—Nolan Smith was bent over and holding either his hand or his groin area. We'll keep an eye on it and see if he's in for Duke on the next possession.
Duke 46, West Virginia 38, 15:44 to go in the second half: The beginning of this half has played out much like the first, with West Virginia continuing to drain outside shots (Mazzulla made one and Wellington Smith another) and Duke looking first to go inside, but then finding openings on the perimeter. The Mountaineers have shown more of a willingness to drive to the basket and pick up fouls this half than in the previous 20 minutes, and Duke's big men have gotten whistled more than once already in the period.
Also, for anyone who thinks Coach K gets agitated during games—well, you haven't seen Tom Izzo. Krzyzewski looks positively bored compared to Izzo, who stomped around, yelled at his players, yelled at the refs, yelled at his assistants—hell, he could have yelled at me (I'm sitting two rows behind the home bench) and it wouldn't have shocked me.
HALFTIME: A couple of stats at intermission: Brian Zoubek has four points and seven rebounds, the most of anyone. Kyle Singler leads all scorers with 14, and Nolan Smith (who has three fouls) isn't far behind with 11. There were only nine total turnovers in the first period--four by West Virginia, five by Duke.
And here's a random tidbit: West Virginia's Joe Mazzulla's name has been blacked out on the back of his jersey. Not sure what this means.
Duke 39, West Virginia 31, HALFTIME: By all accounts, a pretty impressive half from Duke. The Blue Devils lead by XX on the scoreboard, have a big edge in rebounding, are shooting a high percentage and are playing tight defense, especially on the interior. Said simply, Duke can win an NCAA championship with that kind of performance.
But then, there are the worrisome parts of the first half. West Virginia's offense isn't very explosive, but the Mountaineers still managed to shoot over 50 percent from the field and hit 4-of-6 shots from beyond the arc. Duke's offense has also been stagnant at times, forcing players to call timeout at least twice, and West Virginia's better slashers have been able to get to the rim uncontested a couple of times. For the most part, though, Zoubek is controlling the boards inside and Duke is dictating the tempo the way it wants so.
Duke 37, West Virginia 26, 3:40 to go in the half: Let me express my deepest thanks to the NCAA tonight. I loved paying $10 for an Internet connection that has already flaked out four or five times at the biggest sporting weekend of the year.
Anyway, back to game action: Just as I started a post about Duke scoring inside and West Virginia scoring from the perimeter, the Blue Devils went ahead and hit three consecutive 3-pointers to jump out to an 11-point advantage. The Mountaineers switched briefly to the 1-3-1, but with the same result, a crushing Duke three.
Duke 18, West Virginia 14, 10:15 to go in the half: A little spurt from Duke put the Blue Devils up seven all of a sudden, and it's all been Kyle Singler—first a curling layup, then a scrappy bucket under the basket, and finally a catch-and-shoot three off a pass from Zoubek. But Kevin Jones answered for the Mountaineers with yet another three, and nobody's been able to carve out much breathing room to this point.
Duke 11, West Virginia 9, 12:46 to go in the half: West Virginia has continued its hot perimeter shooting from its defeat of Kentucky, and the 'Neers have already hit two threes to stay close early on in this one. Reserve guard John Flowers hit the first, and Ebanks nailed the second from the corner.
As usual, Duke is using a lot of players—eight have already gotten into the game (at least after this timeout, when Andre Dawkins hits the floor), but Bob Huggins has a pretty thin bench on the other side. Only Flowers has subbed in to this point, and don't expect a ton of contributions from West Virginia's bench players.
Duke 9, West Virginia 7, 15:18 to go in the first half: So much for West Virginia's 1-3-1 zone—the Mountaineers are playing man right now, and they blocked three Duke shots in the first two minutes of action. The second of those led to an easy fast-break finish for forward Devin Ebanks, something the Blue Devils should look to contain going forward.
Duke's offense, meanwhile, has looked pretty standard, which is to say, effective. Jon Scheyer is dictating play and getting the ball to Nolan Smith, who has gotten open along the perimeter and tried taking it to the rim; Brian Zoubek is doing his part, too, finishing two layups inside and kicking a rebound out to Scheyer for three.
PREGAME:
INDIANAPOLIS — To all 50 basketball fans in the United States who didn't watch the Butler-Michigan State game that ended a little while ago, welcome to massive Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indy for the second national semifinal between No. 1 Duke and No. 2 West Virginia.
This game hasn't even started, and already it's been as entertaining as the last one. Nolan Smith led the Blue Devils onto the court, and instead of taking the steps onto the elevated floor, he jumped them with a smile on his face; then, NBA great Jerry West's son Jonnie West led the Mountaineers onto the court, but as he dribbled toward his basket, his teammates stopped and giggled while West went on alone.
Now, to the game, the winner of which will take on host Butler, in front of what is sure to be a partisan Bulldog crowd, Monday night.
Starting lineups:
Duke: Nolan Smith, Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler, Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek
West Virginia: Joe Mazzulla, Da'Sean Butler, Devin Ebanks, Kevin Jones, Wellington Smith
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