*** The Official Duke @ UNC Thread ***

[ligastar]

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well to all the UNC fans, good game and other such compliments. Your team really is quite good, especially considering all they lost.

As far as Duke goes, Williams really needs to step up to the all-american level he should be playing at. McRoberts looked niiiiice though tonight.

GO DUKE!!

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Just getting back from the sports bar.

Bitter pill to swallow. The Heels offense in the first half was a disaster, to be down only 5 points...we were like OK, good.

Then the 2nd half runout, that was just embarrassing. It got so bad Roy had to bring in the "Blue team", ala Dean Smith, to stop the bleeding.

Duke got nice contributions from McRoberts and Dockery (although Dockery almost became the goat of the game when he missed two FTs and quickly fouled Frasor).

The critical factor in this game was that Duke has the player of the year and UNC doesn't. Redick simply is a pimp who had his way tonight. Credit to the man...hate to say it but [censored], he killed UNC tonight. UNC's guard play is below average especially when it comes to trying to string together 5 to 6 minutes of solid offensive execution.

I'm not sure what UNC takes away from this game. They were owning the boards which is a positive, they didn't give up and had an opportunity to send the game into OT in the final seconds, but really it was a poorly played game of basketball and yet another home loss (the 3rd this season at home). I don't think UNC really grows from this game. They didn't get enough looks for Hansbrough, turned the ball over 20 times yet again, and came out flat and played "deer in the headlights" bball in the first 5 minutes of the 2nd half. These aren't positive signs. There is no moral victory here. We got beat by Duke, our arch-rival, at home and looked second rate while doing it.

To recap: Duke, led by player of the year Redick, goes into the Dean Dome and executes the game plan and wins yet again. Roy still has issues with his young team and in many aspects (poor guard play, sloppy TOs, not enough fire in the belly during critical stretches of play) is having trouble making the team turn the corner into a solid 40 minute bunch. There is no pat on the back, nice try fellas mentality in these games. There is just too much on the line for that and the team needs to recognize this and play with focus and play with basketball smarts.

My prediction of Duke going 13-3 in conference play is now null and void. Will you all pretend I never said that? I don't see where Duke's next loss is coming from. Nice win for Blue Devil fans. That is all.

[technologic]

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A few observations from tonight's game:

-Greg Paulus could very well cost Duke a national championship this year. His decision-making has been very suspect in tight spots recently.

-I've rarely seen a Duke team play as timidly as this one did tonight while Carolina was storming back to take the lead in the second half. You've gotta think that one of these nights, they are going to get burned deferring to Redick as much as they did tonight. If that happens to be during the tournament, they'll be in trouble.

-Once a year or so, Coach K decides to let his team fight its way out of a bad spot rather than call a timeout, in part, I'm sure, to measure the character of his team. Tonight seemed to be one of those instances. Specifically, when UNC was up 3 or so with maybe 6 minutes to go, Dockery hesitated rather than take a wide-open three, and ended up traveling. The look on K's face when he calmly told Dockery that he should have shot said to me that he was telling his team "It's up to you guys."

-And boy, did Redick respond. Say what you want about him, but the guy made a couple ridiculous shots down the stretch.

-If I was a Duke fan, I'd really be starting to worry about Shelden Williams. Killingsworth (Indiana), Simmons (NC State), Green (Georgetown) and now Hansbrough have all outplayed him -- his stats may have been similar tonight, but the "big" buckets and rebounds seemed to go to the UNC freshman, not the Duke senior. They're going to need him.

-Green's strange decision to take a difficult two with the clock winding down provided an anti-climactic ending to a pretty damn good game. Ah, freshmen!

-McGee

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hit the nail on the head with this post.

i agree with all your points, paulus is the freshman redick was against kansas 3 years ago...choking in all the wrong spots. in these close stretches, i feel like his a/to ratio is like .2 or something.

shelden DEFINITELY needs to step it up...he needs to be more than just a shot blocker. however, we also need mcroberts to step up more often like in this game with demarcus, so we don't get totally pwned in the paint.

this game was a bad game for duke, it shows how duke can blow huge leads in the second half, which has been happening too often. coach k needs to close out games strong, and figure out how, fast. we can't always rely on the heroics of jonathan clay.

[MyTurn2Raise]

I just want to give props for Duke ( a team I've publicly been against quite often in these boards) for a well-played game.

I went to play some rec-center bball last night and just finished watching a tape of the game. Duke did an excellent job of pressuring UNC into turnovers and a good job at avoiding big foul trouble when it looked suspect half-way through the 1st half. Big-ups

Comback was predictable, but Duke held strong at a tough road venue, clearly cementing their #1 seed designation

[Clarkmeister]

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Will you all pretend I never said that?

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New to 2+2?

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