Duke - WVU

It has been a long time since I saw Duke play a better game than what happened last night in Indianapolis. It was nearly the perfect game and the perfect way to win the game. For those who watched the game the obvious negative from the game was the injury to Da'Sean Butler of West Virginia. I hope he has a full recovery and still gets drafting in the 1st round of the Nba draft. Not to dismiss that injury, but here are some thoughts/stats from the game:

• Duke shot 52% from the field and 52% from 3 point line. This is against the 22nd ranked defensive team and a team from the dreaded Big East.
• All 3 of Duke's "Big Three" played really well. In fact they outscored (and covered the line) West Virginia's entire team 63-57
• Duke shot the ball 55 times last night. 29 times they made it. 11 times they got the offensive rebound. That means there were only 15 shots that Duke put up their that they didn't either make or get back. That means when Duke shot the ball they had a 73% chance of something good happening. Using the same math West Virginia had 61% chance of something good happening on every shot.
• Duke's effective field goal percentage (adjust for the fact that 3 pointers are worth more points) was 64.5%. To give you a comparison the top ranked team in eFG% for the year had a 57.9% eFG%. Duke's eFG% for the year was only 50.6%.
• Duke always made up for an average eFG% by getting offensive rebounds (6th best in the country in terms of percentage). This game they not only shot the ball well but also did well on the offensive glass.

All of the bullet points just support the fact that Duke played an incredible game against a really good team. The fact that West Virginia was a really good team makes it that much more satisfying than say a 32 point blowout against a team from 8 miles away. Now they are just one win away. One win away from me using the prize money in two brackets to buy as much Duke National Championship gear as possible. Wow. This almost doesn't seem real.