Kitty Likes to Scratch!

Usually I am upset when Duke loses, all four losses prior to this one this year I got frustrated, but last night was different.  It was unexpected in the way that Arizona played a perfect half of basketball.  It was unexpected that the veteran Duke team reacted to Arizona’s great play by curling up in to a ball instead of counter punching. 

The way that Arizona played in the second half could not have been stopped, Duke wasn’t going to beat Arizona when they were playing that way.  Because of that I was in a surprisingly good mood last night after the game.  I felt like “It’s just one of those days.”  If you are an average lip reader you could see Coach K say just that to his assistant coaches in the second half after a Nolan Smith missed free throw, “It’s just one of those days”.

In your daily life when you come up short on a goal, sometimes the reasons you came up short will stick with you and bug you.  I find that this only happens when you had something that you could’ve done or tried harder at to achieve said goal.  Yet, if there was nothing else you could do, or the goal was too big to achieve you can come to peace with the failure to accomplish the goal much easier.  This definitely, for me, translates to last night’s game.  What I saw from Arizona in the second half, to me, there wasn’t much Duke could’ve done to stop that freight train.

So Arizona moves on to the Elite 8 to face Kemba Walker and the UConn Huskies.  If they play like they did in the second half, they will not lose another game this year.  I doubt they play like that though, the stars aligned for one half of great basketball.  Derrick Williams will be a beast, and if he continues this type of play even without aligning stars they will be a tough out.

Congratulations to Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith for great college careers.  Both are rarities in this era of college basketball.  Two players who both at times in their career had chances to go pro early, and passed even after winning a championship.  Both players improved each and every year from their Freshman campaign’s.  It will be really weird to see Duke take the court next year without Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith suited up.  It will also be very tough to replace the leadership from these two guys, who up to this point in their career's were very quiet and followed other leaders on the team.  Good luck to both of them in their future pro career's.

In the coming weeks I will continue to give opinions on the NCAA Tournament and then following the Tournament I will begin the season review.  Player profiles from the year, incoming Freshman profiles, season review, early 2011-2012 preview and more.  Then following that, the Mr. Duke blog will go into off season mode.

Also working on a collaboration project that will soon be available for you all to view, news on that coming soon.