DUKE 73, NC STATE 82, SECOND HALF, 1:24 REMAINING
Duke calls timeout to talk about miracles. Students from the upper bowl are starting to make their way toward the court...
DUKE 71, NC STATE 81, SECOND HALF, 1:58 REMAINING
NC State comes down with an offensive rebound after the timeout. A foul by Nolan Smith follows, bringing the team total to 10. Gonzalez sinks both free throws, giving him 12 points to go with seven assists. Singler makes a long two on Duke's next possession to bring Duke back to a single-digit hole. Horner puts it right back at 11 with a long jumper. That makes 20 for him. Singler then proceeded to miss his first of two free throws. With that, I'm unplugging my computer to aid in my quick getaway.
DUKE 68, NC STATE 77, SECOND HALF, 3:26 REMAINING
Nolan Smith makes two free throws, and the Blue Devils are down by nine. Timeout Wolfpack with 3:36 to go.
DUKE 66, NC STATE 77, SECOND HALF, 3:39 REMAINING
In a perfect snap shot of how the game has gone for Duke, Gonzalez made a three as the shot clock ticked to zero to make the lead 11.
To add insult to injury, the trumpet section just ran down the court to the student and blasted its noise into my face.
This, folks, is why they play the games. Who would have ever imagined this after the 20-point drubbing Duke gave Wake Forest only a few days ago?
DUKE 64, NC STATE 72, SECOND HALF, 4:46 REMAINING
Anyone remember when Duke was only down by three at the half? Yeah, me neither.
Singler made two free throws at the 6:26 mark to cut the deficit to 10. It needs to be eight at the 6:00 mark for Duke to have a realistic hope. Lance Thomas dived for a lose ball to force a jump ball, but the Wolfpack retained possession. On NC State's ensuing effort, Singler committed his second foul, Duke's ninth of the half. Zoubek scored down low but then missed the three point opportunity. Time is running short for Duke, so they need to convert on all opportunities. The lead is back at 10 again after Tracy Smith makes two free throws. Another "interesting" call by the refs returns the ball to NC State after a forced shot by Scheyer.
At this point, my fellow reporter Scott Rich and I need to seriously start thinking about how we will avoid the rushing student section directly behind us at the end of the game.
DUKE 56 NC STATE 69, SECOND HALF, 7:49 REMAINING
The wheels are starting to come off.
Singler picked up an offensive rebound off of Scheyer's miss and subsequently drew a foul. He converted one free throw to knock the lead down by one to 11. Horner put it right back up to 13, continuing the one step forward, two steps back trend for Duke. Singler then lost the ball to register the 13th Blue Devil turnover of the game. Horner made his next shot attempt, and now the hole is a game-high 15 for Duke. Count me as shocked at this point.
Gonzalez then found WIDE open Horner for a dunk and his sixth consecutive point. In a moment that provided a glimmer of hope, Scheyer made three free throws to "close" the deficit to 13.
The jumbotron just announced that it is Tracy Smith's birthday. I'd say that with 20 points, he is giving the whole crowd a present.
Duke 51, NC State 63, SECOND HALF, 11:42 REMAINING
Zoubek made his first point of the game off of a free throw, but then missed the second. In a zone defense, Zoubek and the Blue Devils were able to force a jump ball off of a Tracy Smith shot attempt. That's progress. Zoubek then proceeded to draw another foul and this time sank both from the charity stripe. His one-man show would stop there though—two possessions later, he committed a reach in foul on Smith trying to stop a pass. Scheyer followed with another foul, but Howell luckily missed the and one free throw. Lance Thomas completed the trifecta, adding a foul of his own. F-O-U-L may spell D-O-O-M for Duke in the second half.
NC State is still not missing many shots (and not taking many difficult ones) and is still refusing to cut the Blue Devils any breaks. Singler missed on a three at the 13:01 mark, and in typical fashion Degand answered by making his own. Scheyer then converted on a two to stop the bleeding at 63-51 before the TV timeout.
Duke 46, NC State 56, SECOND HALF, 15:45 REMAINING
Off of the timeout, Scheyer missed a three. On his next attempt though, the try rang true to make is a 54-46 deficit. Tracy Smith added his 20th point of the game, once again from down low to push the lead back to 10 for NC State going into the TV timeout.
In a little over four minutes, the Wolfpack have extended its lead by seven points. And I am still waiting for my mathematical prediction of a decrease in shooting percentage to come true, but as it stands now, NC State is actually hotter than ever, shooting 66.7 percent from the field. Whoops.
Duke 41, NC State 50, SECOND HALF, 17:53 REMAINING
Singler opened the half with a foul on a 3-point attempt, and the freshman Scott Wood made him pay by making all three, doubling the Wolpack's lead in under 15 seconds. Mason Plumlee committed his third foul and sent himself to the bench on the next possession. Scheyer then made a crowd silencing three to bring Duke within five, but Tracy Smith continued his dominance by reawakening the crowd with a dunk to push the lead back to seven moments later. On NC State's next possession, Tracy Smith did it again, forcing Coach K to take a timeout. There is no way any Blue Devils player heard anything though—this crowd is as loud as any I have witnessed.
Duke 38, NC State 41 HALFTIME
Off the timeout, Singler put two in. Tracy Smith, following the flow of the game, answered with his own field goal. With 10.5 seconds left, Singler committed a questionable foul as he tried to stop Howell from running away with the ball he coughed up. Nolan Smith made a huge shot at the horn to send Duke to the locker room only down by three in a game that feels more like a blowout.
A quick look at the stat sheet is telling. The Wolfpack are shooting an unreal 64 percent from the field and, by the laws of statistics, should cool off. Tracy Smith, however, will not cool off if no one steps up and stops him down low. He is 7-of-8 from the floor for 14 points.
On the Duke side, Singler and Smith are leading the way with 12 points, but Singler's come off of a 4-for-10 effort from the field. One real positive, though, is the Blue Devils' 20-8 advantage on the boards, which surprised me—I lost that in the shuffle of the generally sloppy play. The two teams have combined for 16 turnovers and 19 fouls in only one half of play. For its part, the Blue Devils have committed nine of those giveaways, only about two shy of its season average of 11.6 a game.
Duke 33, NC State 38 FIRST HALF, 1:13 REMAINING
With the first half winding down, Scheyer made both his free throws to cut the deficit to 31-26. Singler stole the ball on the ensuing possession, and Nolan Smith drained a three to give the Blue Devils signs of turning this around. But Degand answered with a three of his own. Singler sunk two free throws, but the Wolfpack answered back with its own two points. Thomas cut the lead to three with a layup, but Howell once again answered right back. Right now, NC State is not conceding anything, including the momentum.
Duke 24, NC State 31 FIRST HALF, 3:58 REMAINING
You do not see Jon Scheyer miss the front end of a bonus free throw situation, but he did just that. You also this year have not seen Singler in the post much, but he muscled down there to cut the Wolfpack lead to five at 29-24 to force a timeout by NC State with 5:03 left. After Gonzales laid one in, Degano committed a foul he clearly regretted instantly to send us to the TV timeout.
After a quick hot hand, the Blue Devils have cooled off and are now 9-of-22 (40.9%) from the field. NC State, in contrast, continues to shoot well, going a significantly better 12-of-20 (60.0%) from the field. Chances of the Wolfpack continuing to shoot at that clip are not high—at least Coach K hopes so.
Duke 19, NC State 26 FIRST HALF, 7:06 REMAINING
The Blue Devils are their own worst enemy right now. The sloppy play continues - for instance, Miles Plumlee was called for traveling and Nolan Smith put up a floater but then negated it when he touched it as it was going in. Javier Gonzalez made a crowd-pleasing three to push the Wolfpack's advantage to 26-17 before Nolan Smith stormed down the court to put in a layup to edge Duke back to being down by seven. Duke obviously needs to improve going forward if they want to avoid this upset.
Duke 15, NC State 15 FIRST HALF, 11:37 REMAINING
Those two early steals by NC State proved to be a foreshadowing of more to come. The Blue Devils had three turnovers in one minute and lost their lead temporarily. Miles Plumlee pulled down a significant defensive rebound to stop the bleeding and Kyle Singler scored on the ensuing possession to tie the score going into the TV time out. It's no secret that Duke must have better ball protection going forward.
Duke 8, NC State 8 FIRST HALF, 15:35 REMAINING
Well, it looks like both teams have come to play. Duke has not missed a shot yet, and NC State has been keeping pace with two early steals. Tracy Smith is carrying the team with six points and one of those steals.
The crowd is into this early tight game too - the student's favorite (printable) insult is for Kyle Singler to get a haircut. I personally think he looks pretty good.
TIP OFF: We are right in front of the student section and the kiddies just said Go to Hell Carolina...nice try?
In other news, the stadium is much fuller than I anticipated (this is the home of the Carolina Hurricanes after all, there is a lot of space to fill) and there is a lot less Blue than I expected as well. Looks like this will be a true road test.
PREGAME: Welcome to the RBC Center, a quick 25 minute drive from the Gothic Wonderland. As we watch UNC lose again, let's look at some quick pregame notes:
*It is well known that Duke has yet to win a true road game. As Gabe Starosa noted in today's sports section, of the Blue Devil's six road games, four have come at the technically neutral Madison Square Garden, and the other two have resulted in Duke's only two losses. Duke is hoping that this short jaunt up I-40 can get it back on track before traveling to the notorious Littlejohn Coliseum at Clemson, where last year the Blue Devils were on the wrong end of a 27-point blowout.
*This is NC State's third consecutive game against a ranked opponent. The Wolfpack downed then-No. 25 Florida State 88-81 and then lost to No. 24 Clemson in a close game 73-70.
*Last time out for Duke, Kyle Singler netted his third double-double of the year and 16th of his career by scoring 21 points and pulling down 15 rebounds in a 90-70 win for the Blue Devils. But the real story was the emergence of the Plumlee brothers, who combined for 30 points and 21 rebounds. Miles posted career highs in both scoring in rebounding, with 19 points 14 rebounds.
Probable starters:
Duke:
2 Nolan Smith, G
30 Jon Scheyer, G
21 Miles Plumlee, F
12 Kyle Singler, F
42 Lance Thomas, F
NC State:
10 Javier Gonzalez, G
12 Farnold Degand, G
15 Scott Wood, F
23 Tracy Smith, F
31 Dennis Horner, F
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