Duke gave itself a chance in the end against Virginia, but again couldn’t finish
Trevor Keels couldn’t help but laugh. Not ha-ha laughing, nothing jolly in the least. It was a wry, knowing chuckle at the circumstances of all four of Duke’s losses, entirely of the Blue Devils’ own making, when all you can do is laugh.
The Duke guard knows the questions are coming, especially after Monday’s limp last-second home loss to Virginia, and there’s only one way to stop them.
Can Duke finish? Can the Blue Devils handle game pressure?
“We lost four games that we for sure should have won, for sure should be undefeated,” Keels said. “We’d rather this happen now than March. Learn from this. Watch film. In March, it’s going to be a different conversation.”
You can learn a lot more about Duke from a game like this one than the rout in Chapel Hill. Once again, the lessons for the Blue Devils aren’t good.
It’s clear they’re a high-flying, high-scoring bunch when things are going well, as they did from the start Saturday, but there are serious and growing questions about whether Duke can tough it out when things get difficult.
Virginia put Duke to that exact question Monday night. For the fourth time this season, the Blue Devils didn’t have the answer. The 69-68 loss was the fifth straight game against Virginia at Cameron to be decided by a single possession.
Duke, outplayed from the start and for most of the night, still led by three with 2½ minutes to go, and by two as Virginia inbounded the ball under its own basket with 10 seconds to go. And lost.
Duke won narrowly against Gonzaga and Clemson, but against Ohio State, against Miami, against Florida State and now against Virginia, the Blue Devils’ future NBA stars couldn’t make the plays to win in the final moments.
The last time Duke won the national title, Tyus Jones sought, took and made the big shots Duke needed to win games like this. Where’s this team’s version of Jones?
So far, it’s not Paolo Banchero, whose only shot in the second half was an unanswered prayer at the buzzer and turned the ball over with 33 seconds to go. It’s not A.J. Griffin, who was unstoppable against North Carolina and invisible against Virginia. It might be Keels, who scored Duke’s final four points, but the ball wasn’t in his hands at the end.
“When we were right there,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said, “we couldn’t close the deal”
Reece Beekman’s 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds to go was the game-winner — Virginia’s first 3-pointer of the second half, after Mark Williams lost track of Beekman, the inbounder — but the Cavaliers outplayed the Blue Devils in every area when things got tight over the final two minutes, and that shot might not even have been Beekman’s biggest play.
Virginia nicked this game from Duke just as easily as Beekman picked a complacent Jeremy Roach’s pocket under the Virginia basket with 108 seconds to go after a Beekman miss. Duke led 66-64 at that point, in possession (briefly), with the lead. The building was rocking. And then it wasn’t.
The combination of Banchero’s turnover and Beekman’s wide-open shot was catastrophic.
“We put ourselves in a position to win and we made two bad plays,” Krzyzewski said. “Two really bad plays. One on offense and one on defense. That’s all it takes. And they made plays. It’s a tough loss because of how it ended. But we were not worthy of winning most of the game.”
There’s also the turnaround factor. The Blue Devils not only couldn’t stand prosperity after trouncing the Tar Heels, they were woefully unprepared for Virginia’s offense on two days’ rest. The Cavaliers got so many open shots off curls in the lane that Duke, with Williams mired in foul trouble, ended up going zone for most of the game.
That’s never, ever, ever a sign that things are going well for Duke.
Nor is the inability to prepare for a unique opponent on short notice, a staple of NCAA tournament success. Krzyzewski talked about how a lot of teams can win Thursday or Friday but not Saturday or Sunday. In this case, Duke could win Saturday but not Monday. That’s the schedule in New Orleans — not that the Blue Devils are going to get that far if they can’t defend a lead in the final minute.
This team has big goals and faces suffocating pressure to achieve them in Krzyzewski’s final season, but if there’s a go-to player on this team when times get tough, he has yet to reveal himself.
It’s not too late. But it’s not getting any earlier. Keels promised better in March. That’s only three weeks away.
This story was originally published February 7, 2022 at 10:23 PM.
