Duke’s defense shuts down Cal in 68-53 victory

Posted On: March 21, 2010 By: Cliff Comments: (more)

Duke’s defense was huge on Sunday afternoon as the Blue Devils shut down a hot shooting CAL team in the second round of the NCAA tournament to advance to the Sweet 16 where they will take on Purdue. Nolan Smith slapped the floor in Jacksonville to get the defense going and he shut down the PAC10 player of the year Jerome Randle as he only allowed Randle to score 12 points. Smith on the other hand scored a team high 20 points as the Blue Devils posted a 68-53 victory.

“I wanted to pick him up as early as I could,” Smith said. “I’ve seen films where he’d come up and shoot from 30 feet while guys are backpedaling. Today I was just up in him. He had to look at me before he looked at the rim tonight.”

Duke showed Sunday afternoon that they can beat teams with defense and rebounding and they don’t need to make 15 three pointers to win a game.

Brian Zoubek came up huge for the Blue Devils as scored 14 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. The 7’1 center is really coming into his own late in the season. As long as he can stay out of foul trouble and grab those rebounds this Duke team will be hard to beat in my opinion.

Kyle Singler chipped in with a quite 17 points on 6 of 12 shooting. However Singler was 1-6 from beyond the arc to go along with Jon Scheyer’s 1-8 from three point land. The three’s weren’t falling but it didn’t matter because Mr. Smith was playing lock down defense on Randle and the Bears couldn’t knock down any shots.

I’m excited for the game on Friday night as Duke will be facing Purdue in San Antonio. It was a good think that Purdue beat Texas A&M in the final seconds because I didn’t want to be playing the Aggies in their home state and I think they have a far more athletic team then the Boilermakers. Duke needs to shut down Kramer and I think they move on in the tournament to face the winner of Baylor and St. Mary’s.

Category: Duke Basketball, Duke Basketball Game Notes

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4 Responses to “Duke’s defense shuts down Cal in 68-53 victory”

greatsportsarticles Says:
March 25th, 2010 at 7:11 am
Scheyer will not disapoint in the sweet 16. He will prove to be the difference in another Duke victory. His advances as a basketball player have been seen all year long as a passer and scorer.
maddie Says:
March 30th, 2010 at 5:10 am
I think Duke is going to win the tournament with Scheyer in there nobody could ever beat Duke in this tournament KENTUCKY ALREADY BLEW IT
Cliff Says:
March 31st, 2010 at 6:06 pm
As long as Duke can get by West Virginia on Saturday, I agree with maddie.
Michelle Says:
April 19th, 2010 at 5:17 am
As long as Duke can get by West Virginia on Saturday, I agree with maddie.