WASHINGTON—With 14:57 left to play Thursday, Duke led Notre Dame 64-48, seemingly on their way to setting up a rubber match against Tobacco Road rival North Carolina in Friday's semifinal.
But then everything fell apart.
The fourth-seeded Fighting Irish ended regulation on a 22-6 run, then scored the first five points of the extra session to outlast the fifth-seeded Blue Devils 84-79 at the Verizon Center, knocking Duke out of the ACC tournament for the second straight year. The Blue Devils went more than seven minutes without scoring and allowed Notre Dame to feast inside down the stretch as Duke's big men dealt with heavy foul trouble.
Freshman Chase Jeter said he thought the Blue Devils took their foot off the gas once they built the big lead.
By the time they got to overtime, there was nothing left in the tank.
"We had a couple [possessions] where we had offensive boards, kicked it out and we missed what I would call daggers. We're going to take them, but we didn't knock them down. That affected us because it's a big-time play that we've always done," Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. I'm proud of my guys for taking them. But then if they miss, you got to play defense. That's what we didn't do."
Just 24 hours removed from an exhausting 92-89 victory against N.C. State, Duke missed 16 of its last 18 shots in the second half, including several open looks from downtown that could have deflated the Fighting Irish. Instead, the Blue Devils let the misses get to them mentally as shot after shot rimmed out down the stretch.
Steve Vasturia scored six points in the extra session to lead the Fighting Irish (21-10), but missed free throws kept Duke (23-10) in the game for a while. Grayson Allen drove the lane and hit four free throws, but the Blue Devils—already tired after a three-point win Wednesday against N.C. State and mired in deep foul trouble—missed three lay-ups down the stretch and the Fighting Irish closed out the game from the line.
Allen entered overtime without a foul to his name, but wound up fouling out with less than 20 seconds to play after grabbing Notre Dame players to extend the game. As he left the floor, the Jacksonville, Fla., native embraced Krzyzewski, with the sobering reality crystalizing in his head that Duke was headed home earlier than he wanted.
"Even though we have more games, I still wanted to win this tournament," Allen said. "It just kind of hit me that we had lost the game and we're packing up and going home. As a competitor, I want to win the game. I don't want to be the guy going home. All the emotions kind of flooded in at that time."
The Blue Devils went scoreless for 7:29 in the second half and missed four free throws that could have padded the lead as Notre Dame rattled off 14 straight points to turn a 64-48 deficit into a 64-62 contest with 3:37 to go. Derryck Thornton finally broke the drought with a pair of free throws, but Marshall Plumlee—playing with a mask to protect the broken nose he suffered Wednesday—fouled out on the ensuing Fighting Irish possession and Demetrius Jackson answered back with a pair at the charity stripe.
V.J. Beachem and Brandon Ingram traded 3-pointers to keep the Duke lead at two, and Ingram split two free throws with less than 90 seconds to play. Beachem then struck again, connecting on his third triple of the game to knot the game at 70.
"Those six to eight minutes, we were really young," Krzyzewski said. "Next week we can't be that, or else that's it."
Freshman Luke Kennard had the final look for the Blue Devils to win the game in regulation and got around Beachem near the elbow, but the lefty's right-handed runner glanced off the rim.
"I knew I could put it on the floor. We had 2.5 seconds," said Kennard, who endured a 2-for-14 shooting night. "I was trying to get it up there—I like the right-handed runners, but it just couldn’t fall.... "It was very disappointing. Just to have a great shot like that, a great look, and not be able to hit it."
The shooting struggles continued into the next five minutes. The Blue Devils went just 2-of-10 from the floor in overtime—not enough to survive the Fighting Irish, who shot an even 50 percent for the afternoon.
The youth the Blue Devils showed Thursday in crunch time overshadowed the team they proved they can be when firing on all cylinders. Before the drought started, Duke looked poised to coast into the semifinals after what would have been two of their best offensive games of the season.
The Blue Devils rode a 13-2 run into the locker room at halftime, with Allen pouring in 18 of his game-high 27 points in the opening 20 minutes to lead the charge. Duke also got nine points and seven rebounds from the tandem of reserve big men Chase Jeter and Sean Obi with Plumlee on the bench with three quick fouls.
Matt Jones kept the offense rolling with a 3-pointer right out of the locker room, and Duke preyed on four Notre Dame turnovers in the first three minutes of the second half to jump out to a 56-42 lead by the first media timeout. Jones later hit another wing triple off of a Plumlee tap-out to push the lead to 16.
"If we play like that and we’re active and we get stops defensively—that’s one of the big things for us is getting defensive stops—when we do that, we can score the ball," Kennard said. "We have a team that shares the ball well together, can play well together. We can put points on the board, but the defense was a big key for us."
But then the foul trouble returned. Ingram, Jeter and Plumlee all picked up their fourth fouls by the 9:57 mark, and Notre Dame began its 14-0 run as soon as Plumlee took a seat on the bench. Lay-ups by Vasturia and Colson followed by a Beachem triple brought the Fighting Irish within striking distance as Duke went cold.
The Blue Devils will now wait for their name to be called on Selection Sunday and ready for the NCAA tournament. Duke rebounded well from its 74-64 loss to the Fighting Irish in last year's ACC tournament, making the needed adjustments and beginning preparations for its national title run.
"We have one last run at this, and then it’s over," Plumlee said. "[It's about] really instilling a sense of urgency—how can we fix this, and then moving on and what’s the next step, because there’s no more time to feel sorry for yourself."
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