Maui Invitational Winners and First Loss of the Season

Posted On: November 30, 2011 By: Cliff Comments: (one)

Wow, where does time go? With the Thanksgiving Holiday and be being out of town for four days I wasn’t able to watch the Maui Invitational as much as I would have liked. Watching games at a bar is no where near as fun when you try to really get into the game and keep track of what is going on. It was great to see Duke stay undefeated in the tournament as they beat a fiesty Kansas squad in the finals.

On to Tuesday night when Duke suffered their first loss of the season when they traveled to Columbus, OH to take on Ohio State. With Lebron James, DeWayne Wade and a lot of former Buckeye players on hand, the Buckeyes cruised to a 85-63 victory over the Blue Devils. It was pretty ugly early on as Ohio State jumped out to a quick 11-0 lead and never looked back. You could tell that Coach K wanted to pound the ball down low with the Plumlee brothers and hopefully pick up fouls on Jared Sullinger but that didn’t work at all.

The one bright spot was freshman Austin Rivers who led Duke with 22 points. Rivers still had some forced turnovers as he attempted to drive the lane but I like the way he plays aggressive and gets to the foul line.

The guys could use some much needed rest. That game was their eighth in 18 days and that included the long trip to Hawaii and back. The team will play again on Dec 7th when Colorado State visits Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Category: Duke Basketball, Duke Basketball Game Notes