Duke 88
Boston College 78

January 24, 2002

Conte Forum. 

  This was a truly weird game jam-packed with fouls and physical play from  the hosts.  The ultimate outcome of this game I think has vindicated Jason  Williams somewhat from last year's game in Cameron, based on the acts of  BC players like Kenny Walls and Ryan Sidney.  As most of us remember, Jason  had the ball and brought it upcourt late in what turned into a Duke blowout  win.  He was ballfaking in Walls' face, who exploded and shoved Williams  into the scorer's table, drawing a technical.  Jason later claimed that   Walls and Bell had been trash-talking the entire game, even when they  were being blown out.  Furthermore, BC was fouling and fouling hard down  nearly 20 with less than a minute left--Jason had grown sick of the abuse.  It doesn't excuse what he did, because he should have simply walked away  and laughed.  This is precisely what he did in this year's game, which for  much of the contest was an even bigger blowout for Duke.  Walls and Bell  talked trash the entire game, to the point where the ref had to stop them.  Walls got in plenty of cheap shots, trying to get Williams and Mike Dunleavy     to respond, but to no avail. 

  After last year's game, BC's players had talked about payback in the  Conte Forum, how their crowd would inspire them to a big victory.  But  Duke knows how to deal with tough road games and how to obtain the sweet  sound of a hostile crowd stunned into silence with a big scoring run.  And  that's precisely what Duke did to open the game.  The Devils blew out to  a 20-3 start six minutes into the game.  BC Coach Al Skinner went zone,  with runners attached to Williams and Dunleavy.  This left Duhon and Jones  pretty much alone.  Duhon started the game by dishing to Dunleavy in  transition, but was quickly matched by a Troy Bell fast break layup at the  other end.  Duhon drove and dished out to Dunleavy, who got some space  and hit a three.  Williams found Boozer inside for an easy bucket, having  slipped behind the zone.  Skinner had his team turn up the pressure on  Williams and Dunleavy.  This resulted in Mike passing to a wide-open Jones  for a three. 

  Mike then picked up his second foul just a couple of minutes into the  game, and Nick Horvath came in.  He got the ball inside and reversed it  to Duhon, who sank a three.  Duke was now up 13-3 with four minutes gone  by.  The Eagles then turned the ball over four straight times, with  disastrous consequences.  Williams took the first turnover downcourt for  an easy slam.  He took the second one and popped in a 15' jumper.  The  third turnover begat an easy Jones bucket on a Duhon feed.  The last  saw Jason get fouled, which was to become a theme for the evening.  He hit  one shot and gave Duke its 20-3 lead, which included a 13-0 run.

  BC actually had a little comeback over the next three minutes, outscoring  Duke 8-6.  They went inside to get a couple of baskets and scored again  on an offensive rebound.  Duke countered with an acrobatic Jones three  point play and a Dunleavy three.  The Devils silenced the crowd with   another 13-0 run that featured four different players scoring.  Dunleavy  passed inside to Boozer, who erased his defender and got an "and one."    Three more BC turnovers led to Dahntay pulling up from 15' and hitting,  a Williams foul shot, and Duhon hitting a three off a Williams delivery.  Jones was everywhere, getting a steal and subsequent layup and then  ripping down a rebound that led to Boozer getting a couple of free throws.  When the smoke cleared, the Devils led 39-12 with seven minutes to go  in the half.  The Eagles look liked a Mack truck had hit them.

  After a couple of Eagle free throws, Duke went inside as BC abandoned  their zone.  Boozer took that as his cue to dominate, scoring Duke's last  7 points of the half.  BC actually went on a bit of a run, outscoring  Duke 13-7 down the stretch.  The crowd started to get back into it and  the Eagles were playing with a bit more energy, but still wound up down  46-26 at intermission.  Boozer had been dominant, scoring 14 points against  BC's helpless interior defense.  Dunleavy played sparingly but Horvath  looked pretty good in relief.  Jones had 10 points while Dunleavy and  Duhon both had 8, spreading the offense around nicely.       

  The king of halftime motivational speeches, Coach K let his young charges  know that it was time to put their opponent away, and with a quickness.  Four minutes into the half, Duke went on a 12-5 run that gave them a 58-31  lead.  It was the 'los & 'tay show, as Boozer started things off by bulling  his way inside after a good Duhon pass, and then sank 2 free throws.  A  Sidney missed resulted in a Duhon rebound, which resulted in Dunleavy throwing  a long pass to Jones for an easy basket.  On Duke's next possession, Dahntay  picked up a free throw, and then duhon followed suit.  After a BC score,  Jones drove and got fouled, getting the basket.  BC had committed 4 turnovers  and 5 fouls in this opening stretch.

  The two teams traded baskets for a couple of possessions, with Dunleavy  finding Boozer for a dunk and Williams sinking a three on a Duhon feed.  BC's defense picked up, stealing a couple of passes in a row and scoring  6 straight to cut the lead to 63-42 with thirteen minutes left.  Duke  restored order to the proceedings with a 7-0 run of their own behind  Boozer and Dunleavy.  Duhon found him open for a trey, and then went low  low to get Carlos for a three point play.  That followed Jones feeding  Boozer in a two-man game to get him an easy look.  With twelve minutes  left, Duke led 71-44.

  But the next eight minutes would be very ugly for the Devils as BC went  on a 22-6 run.  It was aided by a Williams turnover on an attempt to get it  into Matt Christensen, a blown Boozer layup, a Duhon turnover and 2 missed  Williams free throws.  Duke would score every now and then to push the lead  up, with Jones going way up to tip in a Williams miss and Boozer hitting  a couple of free throws.  Finally, Duke extended their lead to 80-66  on a Dunleavy turnaround jumper with three minutes to go.  BC decided to foul  Jason Williams on every single play and see if he could make them.  He hit  just enough shots down the stretch to keep Duke's lead at around 15  before BC hit a couple of late threes to make the final score respectable.

  Most of the second half consisted of Duke being wacked by BC as they  committed an astonishing 16 fouls, with the last 6 committed on purpose.  It served to lengthen a game that had been over long before that.  The  histrionics of players like Sidney and the constant trash-talking really  detracted from the proceedings.  Somehow, I don't think the two teams will  be meeting again during the regular season.  Still, it was a good road  win against a team that was really fired up to beat Duke, one where the  fourth and fifth offensive options got a chance to really shine.

  ** Negatives:    

1. Rebounding.  This was one of the few things keeping BC in the game,  especially since Duke only had 7 offensive boards.  This contributed to  a few dry spells where the Eagles managed to string some baskets   together.  No fault of Boozer or Jones--they both had 7 rebounds apiece.     

2. Foul shooting.  Without Boozer, Duke would have gone 17-32.  Jason was  8-16.  This wasn't really a huge concern because Duke had such a huge lead,  and Jason made enough shots down the stretch to keep BC away.  It just  made the game seem much closer than it actually was.     

3. Shot blocking.  That big "0" you see in the blocks column in the boxscore  shows one of Duke's major weaknesses this year.  Battier's shotblocking  last year was a big defensive weapon that went along with his helpside  defense.  Granted, BC took lots of jumpers, but they had plenty of looks  inside as well.  The player who was supposed to have this role, Casey   Sanders, has simply not stepped up his overall level of play.  That leaves  Jones, Dunleavy and Boozer as players who will need to work a little  harder at developing this.

  ** Positives:      

1. Perimeter defense.  In the first half, Duke simply put the clamps on  BC's star guards Bell and Sidney.  Both recovered to play relatively  good games...but they were essentially taking free shots when the Eagles  were down by 30.       

2. Ball movement. 20 assists on 27 field goals is simply the way this team  plays all the time.  But I especially liked the way that Dunleavy found  the open man under pressure and how Duhon attacked the basket and pitched  out to the open shooter.       

3. Pressure.  Speaking of Bell and Sidney, Duke pressured them into 8  turnovers apiece, essentially crippling BC's attack.      

Player-by-Player:    

  ** Boozer: A truly fantastic game in a string of great games.  He took  advantage of a weak BC inside game and exploited it to the max.  While  BC's Agbai had some success inside (20 points), part of this was due to  Boozer's foul trouble.  The amazing thing is that Carlos had 4 fouls but  managed to play 36 minutes.  The one thing that Carlos doesn't always  do is finish strong inside.  His touch is so accurate that he will sometimes  flick up a shot rather than go up strong in an effort to draw a foul.  That  hurt him in this game as he missed a couple of easy layups.  But I've found  that Carlos has become an excellent "next play" player, learning from his  mistakes.  He had 2 three point plays and did a great job at the foul line  in general.  He picked up his rebounding in the second half with 5 boards.  14 points in each half shows both remarkable consistency for Carlos and  a concerted effort on the part of his team to get the ball--as well as him  asking for it.  Carlos has been solid all year but has reached a new plateau  of effectiveness.  If he can just cut down on some of his fouls and perhaps  block a shot or two, he'll be performing at close to his best.       

  ** Dunleavy: Solid little game for Mike D.  He passed well (5 assists),  was 3-5 from three and had 16 points overall, and picked up 5 boards.  Not  a dominant performance, but he did enough to provide matchup problems on  offense.  This was not his best defensive game, though he did pick up a   charge.  Like Carlos, he was solid in both halves, scoring 8 in each.  He  did most of his work from the foul line in the second half but also hit  a big turnaround jumper to give Duke some more breathing room down the  stretch.  His passing is what really impressed me, starting a couple of  breaks with outlet passes to Jones and working the ball into Boozer three  times, including a thread-the-needle pass to Carlos towards the end of  the first half.  Some BC players talked about him as a headache to guard  because of his versatility.         

  ** Jones: This was an excellent game for 'tay, bordering on the spectacular.  His 7-10 shooting speaks to how efficient he was on offense, while his 7  boards and 3 steals show that he didn't sacrifice defense to do it.  The  interesting thing about his game is that given room, he can really do it  all on offense.  He had a crucial tip-in basket with nine minutes left,  a three, a 15' jumper, and four drives to the hoop, twice getting three  point plays.  Off the dribble, he's as dangerous as anyone on this team.  More impressive was his aggressive play on the boards, where he attacked  the defensive boards in a way no other Duke player was.  More and more,  he's becoming effective as a "rover" on offense, getting open shots and  free lanes to the basket.  With Duke's Big Three so difficult to guard,  Dahntay is learning to take advantage of his role on the team as a   jack-of-all-trades.    

  ** Williams: Kind of a weird night for Jason.  He was BC's obvious object  of derision, and tried to play it off with humor.  But the fact that he  had a virus made him look a step slow the whole night, and it was clear  that he simply couldn't concentrate on the foul line.  He still hit half  of his foul shots and made a bunch down the stretch.  But he only took  8 shots and turned the ball over 6 times, the latter a clear concentration  problem.  Still, even on his bad days he scores in double digits, gets  assists and hits a three.  More importantly, his improved defense has   continued into this game, as he took turns guarding Bell in the first half.    

  ** Duhon: This was one of Chris' better games in a while.  He had a fine  floor game, harrassed Bell & Sidney with three steals, and was even   aggressively scoring early on.  He truly ran the team in this game, getting  assists to all of the other scorers and penetrating well.  He also did  a fine individual job on Sidney, harrassing him to the point of insanity.    I was happy to see him finish in transition and pull the trigger on his  threes a couple of times in the first half.  He was much quieter in the  second half, concentrating on passing and defense.     

  ** Horvath: Coach K was pleased with his play despite his lack of scoring.  He came in for Dunleavy and the team responded.  He missed a couple of  threes but did grab a board and had a relocation assist to Duhon.  Coach K  indicated that Nick would probably be receiving additional playing time.    

  ** Ewing: Dan didn't score but Coach K was still happy with his minutes  and his defense in particular.  He had a nice offensive board but missed  both of his shots.    

  ** Christensen: Matt was in his stomping grounds, but didn't play very well.

  ** Sanders: Casey just got a cameo appearance, as he's pretty much fallen  out of the rotation altogether for now.     

  Reported by Rob Clough, tmc@duke.edu

Rob's Archive