Duke vs NC State Basketball Recap

N.C. State 88, Duke 74

The North Carolina State Wolfpack are still on the outside looking in as they chase an NCAA Tournament berth. The team they just beat is headed for the Big Dance, but is becoming less likely to make a lot of noise.

The folks in Raleigh, N.C., threw a loud and boisterous party on Wednesday night at the RBC Center, but that celebration might have been more for Duke's demise than for the resurrection of Coach Sidney Lowe's squad. N.C. State has a long way to go on the road to Bracketville, but the bigger newsmaker from this 14-point upset is that magic-making Mike Krzyzewski will have to reach deep into the hat if his Blue Devils are going to reach Indianapolis in the first few days of April.

Just three days after walloping Wake Forest thanks to the emergence of interior muscleman Miles Plumlee, Duke got decked by its Research Triangle rival. The balance and brawn which gave ballast to the Blue Devils on Sunday immediately evaporated for Coach K's crew, as North Carolina State secured the most meaningful result of its so-so season.

The Wolfpack beat a decent Marquette team in the non-conference portion of its schedule, but on a night when the Golden Eagles lost to lowly DePaul, that particular win became greatly diminished in significance. NCSU's losses to Arizona, Northwestern, Florida and Virginia forced Lowe's lineup to play far above their pay grade in the ACC. This win tonight will bring the Pack back into the NCAA conversation, but it won't lift this Raleigh roster to the positive side of the bubble. A total of at least 10 ACC wins will be needed to give NCSU a reasonable chance at a spot in the field of 65. This win over Duke was merely an act of survival for a program that hasn't put the pieces together since former coach Herb Sendek left town.

Indeed, the larger shadow thrown over this game is the one that will follow the dusted and defeated Devils back to Durham, N.C. It's hard to imagine, in the wake of this decisive loss, how Duke will possibly be able to reach its first Final Four since 2004.

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Duke needs balance - and more specifically, a powerful personality near the rim and on the glass - in order to become a big-time team. As mentioned earlier, Miles Plumlee gave Krzyzewski a great deal of encouragement by dominating in the paint on Sunday against Wake Forest. The warrior from Warsaw, Ind., provided a blue-collar edge to a Duke team that has relied far too much on 3-point shooting and a finesse-oriented style of play. Duke teams need bad dudes near the tin, and after a 20-point win over the same Wake Forest team that crushed North Carolina on Wednesday, there was a sense that perhaps the Devils could become a fearsome force after all.

That feeling was summarily squashed against North Carolina State.

The Wolfpack hit an absurd 58 percent of their field goal attempts (32 of 55), a completely unacceptable clip for an opponent of a Krzyzewski-coached club. All five N.C. State starters scored in double figures, as the home team produced a balanced and blended body of work which outflanked Duke at every turn.

The Blue Devils' big three of Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer did its part in this game by scoring 61 points, but that production came at a price. For one thing, those 61 points were the result of 46 shots (and only 18 makes), which doesn't represent the height of offensive efficiency. Indeed, Duke hit just one field goal in a span of just over nine minutes (16:47 to 7:35) midway through the second half, as the Wolfpack took control of the proceedings.

The even bigger cost of Duke's three-pronged offensive output emerged in a far more troubling fact: The five other Duke players who logged at least nine minutes of playing time scored a grand total of just 13 points. The Blue Devils presented N.C. State with three impressive performers, but any legitimate national title contender requires at least seven reliable studs. A three-man team will never beat a five- or seven-man team, and that's the most discouraging element of this 14-point thumping endured by Duke. The supporting cast comes and goes, leaving an overworked backcourt (plus Singler, a forward) to do too much of the heavy lifting. Such a house doesn't sit on a firm foundation, and that's why the Blue Devils' chances of making a big NCAA Tournament run are shrinking by the moment.

Something has to change if Duke is to dominate college basketball once again. No signs of hope emerged on a wrenching and rough night in Raleigh.

By: Matt Zemek
ACC Fans Staff Writer