ANN ARBOR, Mich. - With the Blue Devils clinging to a 53-50 lead in the late stages of Saturday's game against Michigan, the Wolverines' Zack Novak drilled a 3-pointer from the right wing.
Greg Paulus tried to counter with a three of his own on the following possession.
He missed.
And after another Novak 3-pointer-this time from the left corner-Michigan had the lead for good, largely thanks to plays exactly like the ones in that 29-second snapshot.
"To me, those two threes really turned it," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said of the Novak hits with around 8 minutes left in play. "That's what I'm talking about maturity-wise. No matter what's happened, at that point you say, 'That's it. We got it. We got the lead, we need to stop them.'"
But Duke failed to do that, in part because the Blue Devils were unable to counter the Wolverines' offensive success with baskets of their own. Despite attempting more than twice as many 3-pointers as Michigan, Duke made the same number of shots from that distance: seven.
And prior to a 4-for-6 surge from beyond the arc in the final three minutes when the Blue Devils were already down by nine, Duke was a paltry 3-of-27 from long range, including 2-of-18 in the first half.
The Blue Devils' 33 attempts were a season high, and the game was the third straight in which the team launched more than 20 threes after falling below that mark in its first six contests.
"Some shots are going to fall. Some shots aren't," sophomore guard Nolan Smith said. "We're going to keep shooting our bullets, and maybe next time they'll fall. That's just the way it went tonight."
The loss, however, continued an unsettling trend for Duke. The Blue Devils have shot less than 30 percent from beyond the arc in five of their nine games this season. Their two worst performances have come against Michigan's 1-3-1 zone defense. Duke was just 4-of-19 in the 2K Sports Classic final Nov. 21.
"That's what that zone gives you," Krzyzewski said. "Obviously, it was not a very good shooting night.... If we blew them out of the gym in the first half by hitting nine of them, then we would've been God's gift to the 3-point shot. That's just the way the game is played."
The Blue Devils stayed within striking distance by shooting a blistering 75 percent on 2-pointers when they were able to successfully attack the zone. But with more than half of their attempts coming from long range, their struggles from that distance eventually caught up with them.
Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer epitomized the disparity between the inside and outside shooting percentages, combining to go 11-for-14 inside of the arc but 2-for-14 behind it.
"We had some good shots, but maybe we didn't shoot them with confidence, and we took some rushed shots," Scheyer said. "Those are going to end up being bad shots if you shoot them like that. When we got the ball inside, we were successful. We just didn't stick with it."
As a result, Duke suffered its first loss of the year against a team it beat by 15 just over two weeks ago. And the Blue Devils know that shooting 21 percent from beyond the arc is not going to be good enough going forward, no matter who they're playing.
"Those same shots are shots that if you don't take them, then you don't deserve to win," Krzyzewski said. "But you've got to take them."
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