Canes Topple Duke

Canes fans all over South Florida are waking up this morning beaming with pride. Their scrappy basketball team pulled off it's biggest win in nearly a decade with a 96-95 victory over the 4th ranked Duke Blue Devils. Maybe it was the lunar eclipse that threw the Dookies off, but I'll take it.

There is a lot to say about this game. First off, you have to give it up to the players for making the most of their opportunities. They forced 22 Duke turnovers and that helped produce one of the better nights of the season offensively. One of my biggest criticisms of the team this season was the poor shot selection and FG%, but last night the Canes drained over 57% of their shots.

The team finally got someone other than Jack McClinton to score in bunches, that someone being Dwayne Collins. The big man absolutely dominated Duke, who has no real presence in the paint defensively, for a career high 26 points.

However, this win was as frustrating as any I have ever experienced watching. The score indicates a close game, but in fact the Canes were up a whopping 20 points with about 13 minutes to go. From there, the team kept making maddening decisions to foul unnecessarily and take shots 10 seconds into the shot clock. Their ballhandling suffered in spurts and contributed to 21 turnovers of their own.

This team had the game won and very nearly let it slip away with all the miscues. Missed free throws. Leaving Duke shooters wide open for 3s. Panic against the full-court press. You name it, the Canes did it. Luckily Frank Haith had a couple of tricky plays set up to inbound the ball safely and both led to crucial baskets.

I don't mean to be a nitpick, but as great as being up by 20 against Duke is for this team, likewise the collapse at the end was very disturbing. They can't make those mistakes late in the season and expect to make an impact in any postseason tournament, if they even manage to get to one.

The win puts them at 5-6 in ACC play with 5 games against beatable teams remaining. Despite the victory, I'd say the team should look to go 3-2 in this final stretch. I suppose it beats having to go 4-1 had they lost to Duke. Winning three more games would leave them at 8-8 and with an impressive enough resume to land an NCAA bid. The Duke win is their 2nd high profile victory in addition to the Mississippi State road win.

One last thing, though I predicted a loss against Duke (who didn't after they lost to Wake Forest this weekend?), I'm on record as having said at the start that this team was deep enough to upset one major power this season. Hooray for me.