There will be no undefeated ACC season for the Blue Devils. Florida State 79, #1 Duke 74, final. The Seminoles, who nearly beat Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium in a game that the referees decided earlier in the season, got the win tonight on their home floor on Senior Night. Woohoo! Duke sucks! :)
The end of the game was ridiculously crazy. In the final seconds, with Florida State up by 5 points, J.J. Redick missed a shot, FSU’s Al Thornton got the rebound and was fouled by Duke’s Greg Paulus to stop the clock with 1.7 seconds left. Notwithstanding that there was still time left on the clock, the Florida State students rushed the court!! And then came my favorite part, though it didn’t get mentioned on ESPN amid the craziness: the scoreboard operator, who had correctly stopped the clock at 1.7 seconds, randomly restarted it and ran it to 0:00!! LOL!! Gotta love the home cookin’.
The officials weren’t buying it, though; they ordered the clock reset to 1.7 seconds and called a technical foul on FSU for the court-rushing shenanigans. (The Seminole coach later conceded that this was the correct call.) Redick hit both free throws, cutting the lead to 3, but Thornton still had his free throws to shoot for FSU. Coach K actually ordered his bench players (including Redick and the fouled-out Shelden Williams) off the court at this point, before FSU’s free throws, for safety reasons due to the crowd situation. In a surreal scene, the Blue Devil players were shaking hands with everyone on the Seminole bench as they went, notwithstanding that the game wasn’t over yet, and Duke could still theoretically have won. But Thornton staved off any thoughts of a Duke miracle by hitting both free throws, and the Seminoles won by 5 — and the crowd rushed the court again.
Throughout the whole fiasco, ESPN’s announcers were pretty harsh in their criticism of Florida State’s crowd control, for obvious reasons. Personally, I thought the whole thing definitely made the game even more entertaining… but I suppose I wouldn’t have wanted to be in those fans’ path, either. :)
Alas, I suspect this loss will actually help Duke refocus. I think it’s sometimes hard to get college kids motivated just by saying, “That was a closer game than it should have been.” But now that they’ve lost to the Seminole, it won’t be remotely difficult for Coach K to gets his kids to work harder in practice in preparation for the ACC and NCAA tournaments. Part of me wishes Gonzaga had also lost one of its close games, for similar reasons. (I said part of me. :)
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Categories: Gonzaga, NCAA Basketball & Pools
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March 1st, 2006 at 10:14:55 pm
Right Call. Good Win for FSU. Duke Suked. 3 things you rarely hear said.
March 1st, 2006 at 10:43:15 pm
Think that could vault my Tigers into the #1 spot in the polls, or is back to UConn again?
Ehh well, nice thing about college hoops is that the polls really don’t matter.
These guys will get to play it out on the floor.
March 1st, 2006 at 10:52:34 pm
Duke lost, but better yet, they lost While being broadcast on the Duke Basketball network (ESPN)
I bet Billy Packer was crying like a baby.
Dick Vitale gets on my bad side so fast. He is another Duke Homer who seems to only broadcast Duke games.
I must say, ESPN coverage of The last few weeks in college basketball has sucked. They hardly show any highlites or have break ins, I hope they are going to fix this for Championship week.
March 2nd, 2006 at 12:59:13 am
Is there video of the premature celebration? I’d like to see it if it’s out there…
March 2nd, 2006 at 1:05:14 am
I didn’t record the game on my DVD player, or else I would have posted the video by now :) sorry…
March 2nd, 2006 at 1:05:44 am
P.S. Of course, all you really need to do it turn on ESPN and watch one of the 8,000 reruns of “SportsCenter” between now and 6am…
March 2nd, 2006 at 1:34:12 am
Which time zone? I’m two hours behind you, i.e. 6 a.m. in South Bend, IN is 4 a.m. here in Las Cruces.
March 2nd, 2006 at 2:17:29 am
Check your local listings :) 6am was an estimate anyway. My point is simply that SportsCenter is re-run repeatedly in the overnight hours, so if you want to watch their highlights, I’d recommend turning on ESPN and watching for a while.
May 9th, 2006 at 12:58:52 pm
Bring back Matt Doherty….He was responsible for turning the program around. He’ll bring back defense and up tempo…Brey is an old time coach,
ala the old ECAC days…Plus, he can’t recruit, either.