NCAA Tournament Elite 8 Recap - Duke vs Baylor

(1) Duke 78, (3) Baylor 71

You hear that?

You know what that is?

That is the typical chatter you expect from the masses when Duke makes the Final Four. "CBS loves Duke. The NCAA wants Duke in the final because the Blue Devils bring in ratings. They get ALL the calls."

Trusts a basketball person to tell you this - the Blue Devils, in many precincts of the national college hoops press corps, are not well-loved. Many in the media don't particularly like them, but it's not necessarily a feeling of hatred, either. Mike Krzyzewski lit into a reporter in the postgame press conference after Duke's Friday night win over Purdue, and while Coach K is deeply respected as a person, there is also a bit of wariness toward Krzyzewski among the nation's hoops journalists because Chris Collins - and not Coach K himself - does halftime on-court interviews. There is and has been guardedness about Krzyzewski that rubs a lot of scribes and pundits the wrong way, even though Coach K operates a program the right way and has established a model that everyone in college basketball not named Tom Izzo or Roy Williams has generally failed to match over the past decade.

A lot of writers' feelings towards Duke are mixed at best. That said, it is absolutely ludicrous to say Duke got all the calls on Sunday afternoon at Reliant Stadium in Houston.

Lets start with the obvious - the charge call that did shift the balance of momentum in the game, but which hardly decided the outcome of the last regional final in the Big Dance.

With four minutes left and Baylor up 59-57, Bear forward Quincy Acy caught the ball in the right corner, took one dribble, and leapt as if he was going to dunk the ball, something he does quite frequently. But Duke's Brian Zoubek, who had four fouls, was there to slide in in front of Acy, who scored.

The whistle blew, however. Instead of an "and-one" and Zoubek being gone with his fifth foul, a charge was called to give Duke the ball and keep the margin at two points.

Now, the charge call was not terrible. Zoubek might have been a little late, but Acy definitely leaned in with his shoulder and elbow. It really could have gone either way, and Baylor ended up on the wrong end. Nothing overly egregious in the world of block-charge calls. Duke promptly went on a big run thanks to back-to-back threes made possible by offensive rebounds from unheralded forward Lance Thomas. Duke's prowess on the glass - made possible in part by inattentive reactions from the Bears in their 2-3 zone - enabled the Blue Devils to become the only No. 1 seed to make it to Indianapolis. The win also elevated Coach K's record in regional finals to an absurd 11-1, the best among active coaches.

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Later, with the game decided, another incident caught the eyes of Duke conspiracy theorists. Jon Scheyer of the Blue Devils and LaceDarius Dunn of the Bears got tangled up going after the ball. Scheyer threw a couple of elbows, narrowly missing Dunn on both. Acy responded by getting into the face of Scheyer and his Duke teammate, Nolan Smith. Acy got the technical, while Scheyer got away with nothing. It was hard to agree with that pair of rulings, especially considering that the refs went back and looked at the video; what would have happened in Scheyer landed an elbow?

Nevertheless, that play had zero effect on the game. The charge call on Acy was made when Baylor still owned a lead... a lead it could not protect down the stretch.

Let's be clear: Duke did not win this game because of that one charge call. Duke won because it got 23 offensive rebounds. Duke won because Baylor played as poorly on defense as it has all season. Duke won because it made threes - 48 percent of them - and Baylor didn't (28 percent).

Duke won because it got four offensive rebounds late in the game that led to three 3-pointers and one old-fashioned ("and-one") three-point play. Duke won because Smith and Scheyer (49 points, 9 of 16 threes, 3 turnovers) outplayed Baylor's backcourt tandem of Dunn and Tweety Carter (34 points, 4 of 15 threes, 6 turnovers).

Simply put, Duke won because it was better yesterday.

That had nothing to do with the refereeing.

What's Next

Duke plays East Region champion West Virginia in Saturday's main event at the 2010 Final Four. The sexier national semifinal takes the court second on Final Four Saturday, and so it is that the Blue Devils will battle the Mountaineers in the night game, at roughly 8:50 p.m. Eastern, or 40 minutes after the end of the Michigan State-Butler undercard.

By: Matt Zemek
ACC-Fans Senior Staff Writer