Spear The Turtle

Excuse the pun but I have to "sing" the praises of Kyle Singler yet again. I can't remember a freshman, in Duke's history, that has been the go-to guy. I mean everytime that Maryland made a run and Duke needed a basket, this kid steps up with a big play. Singler finished with 26 points but his importance to this team is unquanitfiable.

As for the game, an excellent win for the Dukies, as per usual. I was very pessimistic going into this game but let's face it, I shouldn't have been. This team is a winning basketball team and they have the chops and determination to make a deep run come March. I think if they can lock up the #1 seed in the East, they have a very good chance to make it to the Final 4. After that, all they need to do is hit their shots and they can beat anybody, I repeat, anybody.

Going into the game, I said that if Vasquez went crazy, Duke would lose. I was wrong. I thought that James Gist would have his usual game but Duke did a tremendous job on him. They held Gist and Osby to a combined 22 points.

Oh and to Cliff Tucker who said that he went to Maryland because he wanted to beat Duke and that if Duke offered him a scholarship, he would turn it down and go to a Division II school, how is this stat line? 6 points, 8 rebounds (that's in two games). Don't open your mouth unless you can back it up Cliff.

BOX SCORE

Duke is now 22-1 (10-0 in the ACC) and they seem to rolling toward an ACC Championship. Amazingly, they have only lost one game this year (by 1 point on a fade away 3 in OT on a neutral court) and the best or worst part depending on how you look at it, is that I was in attendance for their only loss. I will make this vow, if Duke goes through the rest of this season undefeated, including cutting down the nets in early April, I will NEVER attend another Duke game as long as I live, I promise.

Next up is Wake Forest, which is having a pretty decent season despite the dark cloud that continually flies over their program since the untimely death of Skip Prosser. Wake is clearly an NCAA Tournament team next year since they are building a nice foundation and are bringing in two big, big-time recruits. Although they are playing decent basketball and usually play well at home, I think Duke's ball denial and pressure should be too much for their inexperienced backccourt. One thing though, watch out for freshman James Johnson, who is having a spectacular year very much under the radar.

Prediction: Duke 91 Wake Forest 79