Attacking mentality, free throws key in Final Four victory for Duke

INDIANAPOLIS—Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo's strategy against Jahlil Okafor didn't change much since the Spartans and Blue Devils met up Nov. 18 in the Champions Classic.

Once again, he gave post players Gavin Schilling and Matt Costello the chance to body up the Duke freshman one-on-one, allowing the remaining Spartans to keep tabs on the Blue Devils around the perimeter. And once again, Okafor had a big night, scoring 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting to end Michigan State's Cinderella run and put his team into Monday's national championship game.

Izzo said after the game that his goals heading into the contest were to hold Okafor to fewer than 20 points and slow down the Blue Devils' three-point shooting. His team achieved both—Duke shot just 2-of-10 from downtown—but two other factors spelled the end of the road for the Spartans.

"This whole game came down to two things in that first half. We took a couple bad shots—those were like turnovers," Izzo said. "We didn’t do a good job in our transition D and we got in foul trouble and we had different lineups in there."

Duke recognized quickly that Michigan State was trying to run them off the three-point line, opting to attack the rim off the bounce rather than force the issue from downtown.

"They weren’t leaving shooters at all. We only had two threes tonight," senior guard Quinn Cook said. "That got us in attack mode, which led to great offense for us."

Four Spartans—including starters Branden Dawson and Schilling—picked up four fouls, most of them coming trying to stop swingman Justise Winslow and Okafor in the paint. Travis Trice and Lourawls "Tum Tum" Nairn Jr. were whistled for three apiece trying to cut off driving lanes for Cook and Tyus Jones.

"Once we started driving, we put them in some foul trouble because we’re trying to drive every time," Krzyzewski said. "We got a few steals where they fouled us in transition which got us into the bonus earlier. We came into the game not thinking we would drive that much, but we came into the game thinking we could drive. It just worked out that way."

The result: 37 free-throw attempts, tying a season-high for the Blue Devils. Duke also got to the stripe 37 times Nov. 30 against Army.

Getting to the line was one thing, but once there, the Blue Devils made the Spartans pay. Led by Winslow's 9-for-11 performance, Duke knocked down 27 freebies. Michigan State only attempted 16. Winslow's nine makes at the foul line were a season-best and made up a good chunk of his team-high 19 points.

"I give Winslow credit. But he’s 5-for-7 [from the field]. It’s the free throws that killed us," said Izzo, who said the college game has gone from "smash mouth basketball" to no contact allowed during his 20 years in East Lansing. "They didn’t turn the ball over, the officials or the rules. They didn’t take bad shots. That was us. We did."

Even Okafor had a solid outing at the line—the freshman made four of seven—drawing cheers from the Blue Devil faithful on hand and eliciting an excited reaction from his head coach after knocking down a pair with 3:35 lead to push the Duke lead back to 15.

"He’s worked so hard. I thought they were going to start doing hack-a-Okafor during that time, and I wanted to give him as much love and support as I could during that time," Krzyzewski said." And then he hit them. He’s been working so hard at them, and it’s big. Those are two big free throws."

Cook and Jones each have shot close to 90 percent from the charity stripe this season, but another solid showing from the line from Winslow and Okafor will be critical to Duke's bid at a fifth national title Monday. Wisconsin is the 11th-best free-throw shooting team in the country and went 18-of-22 Saturday against Kentucky.

"Who knows, on Monday night he might be in a position where he goes 10-for-12," Krzyzewski said of Okafor. "We believe he can do that, and that’s how we’ll play him, like he can do that."