Duke turns back Orange, 69-65, to set up matchup with Kansas
OMAHA, Neb.—All that talk about busted brackets and the maddest March ever—not happening in the Midwest.
What started as a chess match turned into a free-throw-shooting contest. When it was over, Duke won.
Grayson Allen and Gary Trent Jr., made four clutch free throws down the stretch to help Duke hold off Syracuse 69-65 and land the Blue Devils in a 1 vs. 2 regional final against Kansas.
“A great game to win, a very difficult game to lose,” Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
Freshman Marvin Bagley III scored 22 points to help Krzyzewski’s second-seeded Blue Devils (29-7) pull away from Jim Boeheim’s Orange—the last at-large team to make it into the field, and one looking for a near-repeat of two seasons ago when it made the Final Four as a 10 seed.
This year, Syracuse (23-14) was an 11, but in an NCAA Tournament turned upside down, the Elite Eight already has one of those—LoyolaChicago in the South.
Syracuse is no typical 11, and this was a zone-centric battle of wits between two of the most renowned coaches in the game.
No lead ever reached double digits, and not until Trent Jr. swished two from the line with 6.3 seconds left was the game sealed for Duke, which is one win away from taking Krzyzewski to his record 13th Final Four. He currently shares the record of 12 with John Wooden.
Early in the second half, Krzyzewski did something Wooden never would’ve dreamed of: He tore off his jacket and threw it to the floor, calling a timeout after Syracuse scored two quick baskets to trim its deficit to three.
“It set the tone for me,” said Coach K, who has two freshmen, Bagley III and Wendell Carter Jr., who will likely be NBA lottery picks later this spring. “You could see. I coach ‘ em, so I could see, they were real young. They had young looks. Thank goodness they got out of it.”