That was one of the headlines up in the Philadelphia area newspapers and they were talking about that today on the Dan Patrick Show.
Villanova Wanted It More? It looked like Duke wanted it too, but their shots were not falling and they ran into a buzzsaw of a Villanova defense. Villanova looked quicker to the basket and Duke was in Big Trouble when Henderson and Scheyer couldn’t find their touch.
Here’s more on the game from theacc.com:
BOSTON – Dante Cunningham scored 14 points with 11 rebounds and third-seeded Villanova beat Duke for the first time in more than 50 years, taking advantage of the Blue Devils’ poor shooting to win 77-54 Thursday night and advance to the NCAA regional final.
Duke (30-7), which spent a week at No. 1 in the nation earlier this season, failed to reach the round of eight for the fifth consecutive year.
Kyle Singler scored 15 and Jon Scheyer had 13 for the second-seeded Blue Devils. But Scheyer and Gerald Henderson combined to make just four of 32 attempts as Duke shot a season-low 26.7 percent from the floor.
After jumping to a 5-0 lead, Duke gave up the next 11 points and never led again. The Blue Devils trailed 26-23 and hit the first basket of the second half, but Villanova scored 12 of the next 13.
Worse, the 3-point shooting that got Duke past Binghamton and Texas abandoned the Blue Devils against the Wildcats. After making 45 percent and 50 percent of their 3s in the first two tournament games, Duke hit three of their first 18 attempts and 5-of-27 overall.
Villinova won because they were the better team!
Duke has no inside presence at all and when you live by the 3, you die by it too.
And unlike in regular season, the refs let them play and didn’t call all the touch fouls duke usually benefits from.