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Men hitting their stride as tough stretch approaches**
Not a bad week for the men's basketball team.
Following a 78-69 loss to Wake Forest last Sunday, the Blue Devils put together two of their best all-around games of the season in blowing out a couple of Atlantic Coast Conference opponents.
Wednesday night, Duke demolished Virginia 84-54 in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Sunday the Blue Devils came back and were just as dominant against North Carolina State. Paced by an overwhelming 36-15 first-half performance, Duke cruised to an 85-58 pasting of the Wolfpack in Cameron.
The Blue Devils improved to 19-3, 10-3 in the ACC. The Wolfpack, which had been on a roll of late, was slapped back into reality and fell to 9-15 and 3-9 in the ACC.
"In the conference, you don't expect games where you win by 20 or 25," Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "I never expect that. I go into every game thinking it's going to be a close game. I like the way our guys handled the last two games. We kept our intensity and we didn't get selfish."
Earlier this season, the Blue Devils had been concerned about their inability to blow out inferior opponents. Unconvincing wins over Northeastern (86-72), The Citadel (78-63), and most recently Notre Dame (74-72) raised questions of whether the team was ready to play night in and night out. This week, Duke showed just how much it has improved in that respect, as the Blue Devils jumped on the Cavaliers and Wolfpack early and never let up.
The two convincing victories were especially encouraging for the Blue Devils because there aren't any easy ones left on the schedule.
Duke now enters the home stretch of the season, and the Blue Devils finish up with possibly the toughest slate of games in the country.
The team travels to Florida State Wednesday before returning home to face No. 13 Temple Sunday. Duke then finishes up at Maryland and with No. 2 North Carolina at home.
There probably won't be any more blowouts in the regular season, but Duke is ready to face the upcoming challenge.
"It's definitely good to beat good teams like State and Virginia by a lot," said senior Grant Hill, who had 10 points, seven rebounds and seven assists on Sunday. "We got better this week, and we're going to get better these next two weeks. We're looking forward to what's coming up next."
In the next two weeks, Duke will learn a lot about its chances in the postseason. Not many people around the nation seem to be talking much about this team, but Duke is playing as well as anybody.
The ACC regular season title is within reach (Duke leads North Carolina by a game in the standings), and the Blue Devils certainly have a good shot at the ACC Tournament title. March Madness is just around the corner, and don't think the Duke players aren't aware of that.
"We're playing four tough games at the end of the year," senior Antonio Lang said. "That's when you find out how good you really are. That's something that's going to prepare us for the postseason. Hopefully, this team will play as well as we've been playing.
"It's a great time of the year, because if you don't take things seriously or if you don't play consistently, you won't have many games left. We realize that in order for us to be a good team, we have to play well as a unit and we also have to play good defense. And that's the only way we're going to get anything."
When Duke gets good guard play from Chris Collins and Jeff Capel, when Cherokee Parks and Lang play up to their abilities, and when the Blue Devils play tight team defense, it is a tough team to beat.
These things happened against Virginia and N.C. State. If they continue to happen in the remainder of the regular season and in the tournaments, the results will follow for the Blue Devils.
"We've got some great games that are going to prepare us for the postseason," Collins said. "There are no easy games left from here on out. We're excited about playing. We feel like we've improved a lot.
"For us to reach our goal of winning the ACC, we have to take it one game at a time. [N.C. State] was the game on our focus, and now we're going to look to Florida State."
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