Duke beats Texas Tech, advances to Elite Eight
Duke knocked off Texas Tech in the Sweet 16 on Thursday to advance to the Elite Eight.
By: Kelan Thomas & Matt Burr
Special to Bull City Hoops
SAN FRANCISCO — For the second game in a row, Duke closed with an incredible performance to outlast Texas Tech 78-73 in the Sweet 16 at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
The Blue Devils, down 33-29 at the half and struggling to score against the Red Raiders’s nation-best defense, flipped things completely in the second half, scoring 49 points on 71% shooting. Paolo Banchero led all scorers with 22 points on 7-of-12 from the field, 3-of-4 from 3-point range and 5-of-6 from the free throw line.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski heaped praise on his star freshman after the game, saying “I’ve been around so many good players, and when they just go into their own thing, where it’s stuff you can’t teach them and they do it, that’s what he did.”
Once again, Jeremy Roach also came up huge late, scoring 15 points on 7-of-12 field goals, plus five assists and four rebounds, converting multiple drives into the teeth of the Texas Tech defense as well as leading the point of attack when Duke was on defense.
Coach K called Roach’s resolve “incredible, his drives against that defense were so strong, so determined.”
Surprisingly, Duke played most of the second half in a zone defense, with Coach K saying they mentioned it during their walk-through as something they would do “if necessary, and it was necessary. It kept out the amount of physicality because they were wearing us down, so the zone gave us a chance to dance around the ring a little bit instead of being in a corner.”
One of the spine-tingling moments for Duke fans was surely late in the game when, after the players had in unison requested the coaches to switch back to man-to-man defense for the final minutes, they slapped the floor in unison, upholding a Duke tradition that had been seldom seen in recent seasons.
On that moment, which Coach K instigated from the sideline, he said, “the slapping the floor, what the hell? Why not? Our guys really wanted that because it’s kind of like a cross the bridge to The Brotherhood. They can now say they did that.”
Mark Williams joined Banchero and Roach on the postgame dais and talked about his monster dunk late in the game, saying that “it felt like it gave the team some life, obviously. I was really amped up. I think it got the team going, and I think that translated to the defensive end as well.”
Banchero added that the team had three straight defensive stops after the dunk. Williams finished with 16 points on 6-of-9 field goals, 4-of-4 from the free throw line, eight rebounds and three blocks.
Wendell Moore and AJ Griffin both scored in double figures, continuing Duke’s balanced scoring, as well as both knocking down a pair of free throws late, as Duke shot 15-of-17 from the stripe.
With the win, Duke moves onto the Elite Eight for the 17th time under Coach K, who also earned his 100th all-time NCAA tournament victory. They will face the upstart Arkansas Razorbacks, as the 4th seed upended Gonzaga earlier in the evening. The Blue Devils hope they will continue their recent clutch play and have it carry them on to the Final Four next weekend in New Orleans.