First basket for Duke was a Rodney Hood assist to Amile Jefferson. After this, Duke just couldn't get their shots to fall even though many of them seemed makeable. Then Rasheed Sulaimon dished to Jefferson for another score. Jefferson had the first four points for Duke.
As I was watching the first few minutes of the game, I was thinking: who's the better three point team, Duke or Virginia? It was obviously Virginia in the 1st half as Duke's offense looked horrible.
It looked like Jabari Parker had enough at around the 12 minute mark when it looked like he was determined to get to the basket no matter who was in his way. On the other hand, I'm rather sure that during one series Parker's Achilles's Heel (defense) resulted in Jefferson getting his first foul.
The reason why Virginia looked like the better three point team is because they actually were shooting threes. Duke finally went for a couple threes around the 8:50 mark when Parker and Hood took shots. Parker missed. The ball found its way over to Hood who hit his.
When Duke had a score of 12, Jefferson had half of those points.
Around the 5:30 mark, Cook had the Duke fans jumping. Then Hood made a defensive play that got everyone jumping even more. They were still down 14-17 at that point.
Andre Dawkins who was missing in the previous game against NC State, came in after Parker got his 2nd foul. He immediately turned over the ball, but made up for it in the next series by hitting a three.
The half ended with Duke down 25-28.
The question of the first half was: How did Coach K get his technical foul. He got it by throwing his marker at his bench. Okay . . .
In the 2nd half, Jefferson started the scoring again by hitting one of two free throws. Hmm.
Parker continued a no-matter-what-take-it-to-the-defense attitude in the 2nd half. His thought process, I'm sure was, "I'm just going to find my way into the paint."
Dawkins came into the game again when Sulaimon got into foul trouble. He made a three that got a beautiful bounce.
Score of the game for Duke came when Hood did a nice little pass to Jefferson. Initially, it looked like a Hood air ball, but my DVR re-look seems to indicate to me that Hood did a nice little pass to Jefferson. I wonder if he got an assist for that.
During the 2nd half, I think the announcers were confused. They kept saying Duke was taking the lead for the first time since up 2-0. Or was that my imagination? I'm pretty sure Duke was up a handful of times during the first ten minutes of the 2nd half by 1 or 2 points.
Random thought that hit me in the 2nd half: Is Virginia known as an offensive team? How are they getting Duke players in foul trouble?
I came to the conclusion that Duke wasn't going to win this game around the 5:30 mark. I don't know if it is me just being negative or if I just get this sense sometimes that the Duke players are just being over-whelmed at times. Duke just seemed to be so close at times to pulling away, but Virginia always had an answer. It just seems that when the Duke players aren't able to bend a team's will, they have a problem gutting it out in the last couple minutes of a game.
With 2 minutes left, Duke started to foul. That seemed to make sense as Virginia's methodical offense and their stiff defense meant there were limited number of plays left in the game.
Duke had a late gasp when Dawkins made a miracle shot, but they couldn't build on it.
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