Jayson Tatum
The statline:
Wednesday vs. Clemson: 20 points on 7-of-15 shooting, nine rebounds and four assists in 39 minutes.
Thursday vs. Louisville: 25 points on 9-of-15 shooting, six rebounds, two assists and three steals in 39 minutes.
Friday vs. North Carolina: 24 points on 8-of-15 shooting, seven rebounds, two assists and two steals in 36 minutes.
Saturday vs. Notre Dame: 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting, eight rebounds, one block, one steal and one assist in 39 minutes.
The good: Luke Kennard won ACC tournament MVP after a perfectly fine week in an unprecedented run to the ACC championship, but The Blue Zone will hand its player of the week honors to Jayson Tatum instead. Tatum played 153 of the 160 possible minutes in four days and was Duke's most consistent player, posting at least 19 points and six rebounds in all four games and playing a key role in the Blue Devils three comeback wins against ranked opponents to finish the tournament.
Against Louisville, his three-point play with 12:18 remaining helped cut into a 10-point deficit, and his free throw a few minutes later put Duke in front by one to cap a 16-3 run. Then, with just 2:25 left in the game, his clutch 3-pointer from the corner gave the Blue Devils a five-point lead.
Against top-seeded North Carolina, Tatum scored 18 first-half points to keep Duke in the half, but when the Blue Devils still found themselves trailing by 13 in the second half, he drove down the middle of the lane for a two-handed dunk to spark the team's second straight comeback.
The 6-foot-8 freshman saved his best for last in Saturday's championship game against Notre Dame. Duke clung to a 63-62 lead with three minutes remaining, but Tatum scored or assisted on 11 of the Blue Devils' final 12 points in the 75-69 win. His block on Steve Vasturia's layup, rebound and coast-to-coast layup with less than two minutes left put Duke ahead by three, and he penetrated and found Matt Jones on the wing for a triple on Duke's next possession. The St. Louis native put the nail in the coffin with a dunk through contact with 25 seconds left, giving the Blue Devils a five-point lead.
The bad: Tatum was cold from long range all week, shooting just 3-of-15 from beyond the arc and missing six of his seven attempts Wednesday against Clemson. But he soon adjusted to attack the basket more and do much of his damage inside the paint, culminating in an efficient 7-of-11 night from the field in the championship game.
Although he was able to stay on the court for nearly every minute of the tournament, Tatum also struggled with foul trouble down the stretch of the games against the Cardinals and Tar Heels, fouling out in the final minute of the quarterfinal matchup with Louisville.
The bottom line: Tatum helped carry the Blue Devils to their first ACC championship in six years in what will likely be his only season in Durham with four complete performances in a row. He was named to the All-Tournament team and had a strong argument to deserve the MVP trophy as well, with head coach Mike Krzyzewski saying after Saturday's championship he wished Kennard and Tatum could have shared co-MVP honors. If Tatum keeps up this level of play in the NCAA tournament, his legacy at Duke could grow even more.
Honorable Mention: Kennard averaged 20.0 points in the four tournament games and also notched his first double-double of the season with 24 points and 10 rebounds against Louisville. Like Tatum, he made numerous big plays in every game, heating up in the second half of the first three contests to keep the Blue Devils alive.
The sophomore hit two clutch jumpers in the final two minutes Wednesday to help Duke outlast Clemson, drilled three key triples in the final 10 minutes of the narrow win against Louisville and also converted a four-point play with the Blue Devils trailing by 11 that was arguably the biggest play of the game against the Tar Heels. The only Duke player that was on the floor more than Tatum in the tournament, Kennard played 154 minutes in four days.
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