{"id":68,"date":"2007-12-21T12:44:42","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T17:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=68"},"modified":"2007-12-21T13:18:22","modified_gmt":"2007-12-21T18:18:22","slug":"bsb-in-attendance-7-duke-vs-9-pitt-madison-square-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=68","title":{"rendered":"BSB In-Attendance: #7 Duke vs. #9 Pitt, Madison Square Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night I headed back over to MSG for some college hoops, this time to see two undefeated (both 10-0), top-10 teams square-off in the Aeropostale Classic.\u00a0 I wasn’t aware\u00a0that anyone had actually worn Aeropostale clothing since about 1999, but apparently college basketball fans are now their target audience.\u00a0 Anyway, it turned out to be an exciting game, with Pitt point guard (and Brooklyn native) Levance Fields sinking a three with 4 seconds left in overtime to give Pitt the 65-64 win.\u00a0 Also, unlike the Jimmy V Classic earlier this month, the Garden was packed with rabid Duke and Pitt fans, making it one of those games where you remember why college basketball is so great.\u00a0 The NBA doesn’t have crowds like this for most playoff games, and this was a\u00a0neutral<\/em> court, hundreds of miles from either school’s campus.<\/p>\n

The game was a contrast in styles between two of the game’s better programs and coaches, Mike Krzyzewski and Jamie Dixon.\u00a0 Duke, this year more than ever, loves to get up and down the floor in a hurry and shoot a ton of 3’s, while Pitt thrives in the half-court and likes to grind out wins with ball control and hard-nosed defense.\u00a0 Both teams had their weaknesses (Pitt: perimeter scoring, Duke: inside muscle)\u00a0exposed in this game, but also showed why they will likely be playing on the second weekend of the tournament in March.<\/p>\n

As with just about\u00a0all college basketball teams this year, the main guy I wanted to see for each team\u00a0are both\u00a0freshmen:\u00a0Duke forward Kyle Singler and Pitt forward\/center\u00a0DeJuan Blair.\u00a0 Blair, a Pittsburgh native who led his team to the state championship last year, wanted to play at Duke<\/a> his whole life but was not recruited by them.\u00a0 He claimed to be so excited for the game that he thought he would have trouble sleeping the night before.\u00a0 His nerves showed early as he \"blair\"posted up, but repeatedly rushed his shots\u00a0and clanged them off the rim.\u00a0 As one fan near me put it, “He shoots before he even looks at the basket”.\u00a0 As\u00a0he settled\u00a0down though, he started\u00a0to use his size (6’7″, 265 lbs.) and athleticism to dominate inside.\u00a0 He finished the game with 15 points and 20 rebounds.\u00a0 When was the last time you saw someone pull 20 rebounds against Duke?\u00a0 He still\u00a0has a long way to go in terms of offensive polish and low-post moves, but he’s obviously a force to be reckoned\u00a0with already.<\/p>\n

For Duke, they will have to come up with a way to handle players like Blair.\u00a0 For\u00a0most of the\u00a0game they had a line-up of four guards and Singler, who’s natural position is probably small forward.\u00a0 That definitely won’t work if they want to beat North Carolina and Tyler Hansbrough.\u00a0 Even so, they controlled most of the game,\u00a0accumulating big leads in the first-half.\u00a0 After Pitt made a second-half comeback, Duke seemed to have taken momentum back after an intentional foul call on Pitt with 9 minutes remaining.\u00a0 Singler hit both free throws and scored to put Duke up by 10.\u00a0 But Pitt responded with a 14-1 run, led by leading scorer Sam Young, to take a 3-point lead with 3 minutes to play.<\/p>\n

It looked bad for Pitt at\u00a0the start of overtime, as small forward Mike Cook went down with an injury and had to be helped off the floor.\u00a0 A report just came out that Cook, a Philly native,\u00a0is most likely done for the season<\/a> with an ACL tear.\u00a0 That is a big\u00a0blow to the team, as Cook was averaging 10 points\/game and is\u00a0a senior leader.\u00a0 But Pitt managed to hang around and ended up with the ball, down 64-62, with about 20 seconds left.\u00a0 Fields dribbled around until finally getting an open look and draining the winning shot.\u00a0 Fields was the only Pitt player to make a 3-pointer all game and the Panthers will need senior guard Ronald Ramon to help in that area.<\/p>\n

Both teams have two more tune-ups (including a game in Philly vs. Temple for Duke) before they start league play next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I headed back over to MSG for some college hoops, this time to see two undefeated (both 10-0), top-10 teams square-off in the Aeropostale Classic.\u00a0 I wasn’t aware\u00a0that anyone had actually worn Aeropostale clothing since about 1999, but … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,9],"tags":[110,109,111,112,108],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bsb-in-attendance","category-college-hoops","tag-dejuan-blair","tag-duke","tag-kyle-singler","tag-levance-fields","tag-pitt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}