It’s certainly rare, but Duke is learning all about that fine line that makes teams worthy of the NCAA tournament or subject to being left out of March Madness.
For coach Mike Krzyzewski’s team Saturday night, it occurred in the final 20 seconds of regulation in a game Louisville wound up winning 80-73 in overtime.
Duke led 65-64 after Wendell Moore’s two free throws with 38 seconds to play. One defensive stop and the Blue Devils would have completed a stirring rally from 12 points down in the second half to win their fifth game in a row.
Their NCAA tournament chances could continue to rise.
Alas, it didn’t happen because Duke had a defensive lapse followed by a rebounding issue.
Carlik Jones, Louisville’s superb senior guard, had the ball in his hands looking for the winning play. The Blue Devils forced him to drive to his left, which they preferred, but Moore fouled him rather than give up a basket with 13.5 seconds to play.
“Our help side has to come over,” Krzyzewski said. “It didn’t come over.”
Jones made the first free throw to tie the game. But when he missed the second, the ball came off where Duke’s Matthew Hurt had boxed out Louisville’s Samuell Williamson well.
Williamson, however, used one hand to tip the ball away before Hurt could secure it. Duke had four players in the lane to Louisville’s two. But Jae’Lyn Withers, not Hurt, Jordan Goldwire, Wendell Moore or Jeremy Roach, grabbed the loose ball giving the Cardinals, not Duke, a chance at the final shot.
Jones missing a contested jumper at the buzzer was of little consequence. The Blue Devils missed a chance to have that last shot and it cost them when the Cardinals took control in overtime.
“We blocked out on the free throw but we’ve got to grab the rebound,” Krzyzewski said. “Jones, he doesn’t miss often but he missed that. It would have given us nine seconds or 10 seconds or whatever it was to push the ball down the court. Our game boils down to stuff like that.”
A week earlier, Duke made the stops late to beat Virginia 66-65 at Cameron Indoor.
This time, the Blue Devils didn’t. Even on a night when Hurt scored 37 points, the most by any Duke player since Grayson Allen poured in that many points during a November 2017 game, failure to execute on key plays here and there left the Blue Devils wanting.
It’s a failure that could keep the Blue Devils (11-9, 9-7 ACC) out of the NCAA tournament field for the first time since 1995. Unlike most seasons, Duke doesn’t have enough wins built up to survive too many losses like this late in the season.
Duke climbed its way back into NCAA tournament consideration over the past two weeks.
After suffering through a pair of three-game losing streaks in ACC play over January and February, Duke garnered plenty of good vibes with four consecutive wins entering the Louisville game.
The Blue Devils subsequently squandered them over the first 20 minutes against the Cardinals, falling behind by 10 points at halftime.
When a suggestion was made that Duke grew a bit complacent with its recent success, Moore didn’t dismiss the idea.
“In the first half we kind of played that way,” Moore said. “We won a couple of games so we were happy with ourselves. We didn’t know that this would be that type of game. Louisville was coming in off a win against Notre Dame but a loss to Carolina. They were trying to prove something. They knocked us back first.”
That first half was a regression to the things that cost Duke in losses earlier this season. The Blue Devils turned the ball over too much, missed 3-pointers and didn’t rebound well.
Duke cleaned up many of those things in the second half and overtime, committing just five turnovers over the game’s final 25 minutes after seven turnovers in the first half.
But the 3-point shooting — 1 of 7 in the first half — never found its mark as Duke finished 4 of 21.
Louisville won the rebounding battle 41-33 and secured 15 offensive rebounds in doing so.
As well as Hurt played offensively, and the Blue Devils played for most of the second half to fight back from 12 points down, they couldn’t snag a much-needed win.
In the second half, we dug down deep,” Moore said. “Coach said we had to fight, and I feel like, in the second half, we did come out with that fight. We put ourselves in a position to win, but (against) very good teams, you have to do more than just put yourself in the position. You have to come out with the win.”
Now Duke, on the wrong side of the NCAA tournament bubble by falling from 49 to 58 in the NET ratings after the loss to Louisville, faces games at Georgia Tech (13-8, 9-6 ACC) and North Carolina (15-8, 9-5 ACC) to close the regular season.
Both are chances to collect Quadrant 1 wins to impress the tournament selection committee, especially since Duke’s only Quadrant 1 win to date is over Virginia. More chances could come Duke’s way in the ACC tournament.
But time is running out. Failing to match Louisville’s intensity early and in key moments down the stretch mean Duke has very little margin for error remaining.
