Let me tell you one thing right now - I'm a huge Duke fan, so this post may be a little bias. And how much do I wish I was a college athlete in a top sports program. Daaamn.
Coach K has home court advantage and the stands are full of Duke blue, and there's high energy in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Duke's 2010 win against Georgia Tech marked Coach K's 900th win.
Jabari Parker goes up for his first foul shot after a nice play under the hoop, and as the ball falls through the netting so do the cameron crazies arms. Though, Georgia Tech doesn't seem to worried, a close score and good D all around.
For anyone who has ever played basketball ball, remember when you first learned how to do screens and you tried them all the time? So much that they became irrelevant because the team already knew that you'd just drive as fast as you could to the basket because, let's face it, you had no play?
That's what Georgia Tech is reminding me of right now. They're putting up screens and they're working (unlike back in my day,) but they're getting stuck in the corner and missing the shots (very similar to my day.) It's driving me nuts that all their plays are outside the 3 line, and they're missing everything. Not even half way through the first and the Yellow Jackets' have their 5th turnover of the night. It seems like they're already getting too frustrated to play, even with the score tied with a little over 8 left in the first half.
One thing that I love about Couch K. He sits star players. They're not playing full time and that's a good thing especially for the freshman stars who are used to being the leader of their high school teams. I really like that he disciplines them enough to know they're not everything, they're not the entire team, and they still have something to learn. They are just one part of a team. Kudos to K.
Can we talk about Marshall Plumlee's block in the first half? Behind, clean block. Awesome. And of course, in Plumlee-style his face showed that he didn't care whatsoever. Just doing his job kinda face.
Morris' damn you, that was a sick dunk. Georgia Tech formed some solid fundamental basketball, three cross court, quick passing ending under the basket for a sick dunk.
By the end of the first half Georgia Tech definitely stepped up on their defense. Cameron Stadium is definitely not a good place for GT, considering they've only ever won 6 times ever in the stadium. But GT is adjusting to Duke and playing hard. M. Georges-Hunt has 11 pts going into the second half.
Georgia Tech - 33, Duke - 34, -- halftime.
Duke has it's largest lead (8 pts) of the game three minutes into the second half. Jabari Parker at 12pts for the night, much less than he's used to. Rasheed Sulaimon has been awesome about getting the ball down the court and playing team ball like his pass to another top scorer of the night, Rodney Hood, who knocked down a three with an assist from Sulaimon, and ended up with 27 pts by the end of the game.
It's insane the amount of people that are comparing Duke's Jabari Parker to OKC's Kevin Durant. That's a crazy compliment, and they're playing a lot like each other with low 20's for each game. Unfortunately, lately, Parker hasn't been putting up those numbers in the last three games, but that slump I can see quickly disappearing. Just as Hood said, "the other guys have got to step it up."
Georgia Tech - 57, Duke - 79, -- final.
No comments:
Post a Comment