Duke and Virginia meet-up Saturday in Durham, and the Blue Devils are coming off their only loss of the season. Things could get ugly early for Tony Bennett’s young team.
The Blue Devils are led by Seniors Kyle Singler, and Nolan Smith who made just 12-33 shots in the loss last weekend to Florida State. Singler is near the top of the conference in minutes played, scoring, and three-point field goals made. Smith is tied for the lead in the struggling ACC in scoring, and he makes nearly fifty percent of his shots, which is incredible for any high powered college basketball player.
Virginia is 1-27 against teams ranked number one in the AP poll all-time. The Hoos only win against #1 came against UNC at U-Hall in 1986.
Duke is first in scoring in the conference, averaging 86.1 ppg, and the Hoos are dead last scoring only 63.8 ppg. Yikes!
Virginia is in the midst of a particularly uninspiring brand of basketball even by UVA’s standard of bad, low scoring, ugly, disturbingly heinous, "Mom do I really have to watch the pack-line defense again?" kind of round ball…
The Hoos are 3-2 in their last five games putting up only 47 points in the loss to Iowa State, 50 points in the loss to Seattle, and just 56 in the loss to the Tar Heels in their last game. That being said, Virginia did not give up against the much deeper, more athletic Tar Heels, and they fought to the bitter end, but man, Virginia needs someone to take the ball to the hole, and put the rest of their teammates on their backs and perhaps even pull an Al Haig and say, "Hey, this my damn team, and I am in charge".
Freshman K.T. Harrell could be that go-to guy, but he does seem a bit hesitant to put on his Clark Kent suit, and show us all the Superman cape I think he has hiding in his closet.
Cameron Indoor Stadium is one of the most intimidating venues in the country, and your first time there playing Duke is very tough for freshmen. Virginia plays more first-year players in their rotation than any other Virginia team EVER, and they sure might be down 20 before they break a sweat, or Bennett’s kids just might take the challenge and respond completely differently and stick tight with the experienced Blue Devils for the first half .
A number of years ago, Pete Gillen did not even let his team out on the floor for warmups till just a few minutes before the game, thinking that he would use that early nervous energy to play tight defense, but it did not work as the Devils hammered the Hoos that day.
Prediction? Hoos 66 Duke 88…