Duke v. Maryland

By John Chagaris, College AP
February 13, 2005

Hamden, CT (College Park, Md) – After twenty minutes the Blue Devils were down by five, after forty minutes the game was tied at 88, due to the clutch shooting down the stretch. But sending the game into overtime was as close as Coach K’s Blue Devils would get this night, as Maryland becomes the first team to sweep Duke in a season series since the 90’s, and this is the first time that Duke has lost three straight times to Maryland since 1982.

``I think it's great. You realize the games were close, so you don't gloat,'' Maryland coach Gary Williams said. ``You just feel good because you beat a great program and a great coach.''
Well great coaching yes and a great program on most nights but Maryland had the upper hand in this contest as they were able to do what most teams could not do this season and that is finding an answer for JJ Redick. As he scored a quiet 23 points, while shooting a very cold 5-19 from field goal range and an even more pathetic 3-10 from three point range. Just how powerful was the Maryland offense, well Reddick didn’t get his first basket until eight minutes had passed in the first half

``It was frustrating. We were definitely at a disadvantage missing five of our main players,'' Duke guard J.J. Redick said. ``They just had more overall athleticism than we did in overtime because they still had their main guys.''

And that advantage started to shift towards Maryland shortly after Ewing was hit with a technical early in the second half. Duke still held an 86-82 advantage with 1:34 left to go in the second half when a switch was flipped by Ekene Ibekwe and John Gilchrist to make the score 88-86. With 34 seconds left DeMarcus Nelson tied the game and due to a missed show by Gilchrist and Nik Caner-Medley forced the game to go into overtime where the game was all Maryland.

Duke went ice cold in overtime only scoring four points which all came from the line (Duke went 0-9 from the field during overtime).

``Good teams play well against each other,'' Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. ``That's why we play well against them. They're a very good basketball team; they played with high energy and a sense of purpose.''

A sense of purpose is an understatement as Duke did not play like the number seven team in the county as the team fell apart as five Blue Devils fouled out late in the second half and overtime.

Duke will try to rebound as they travel to Virginia Tech on Thursday, tip off is at 9 pm.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.