to them. I don't remember the TO situation. Both teams played like they didn't have a TO. I would've expected UConn to run it into the front court and call a TO if they had one. Similarly, I would've expected Duke to take a TO after the second FT to make it 72-70 if they had one.

It wasn't quite Chris Webber-level stupidity. I just hate seeing Hurley get bailed out on what was a very lucky play. Even with the way everything played out that was at best a 1 in 10 or maybe 1 in 20 shot UConn made. It wasn't quite a heave but at 35 feet it wasn't anything like his normal shooting motion.

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"It's our blood and bones and these whistles and phones against Miller's and Noem's dirty lies."

who allow 20+ seconds to run off the shot clock on defense and THEN decide they're going to foul the ballhandler (or worse yet, someone away from the ball) should be shot directly into the fuckin sun. I guess you could label that a "coaching failure", but any kid playing at the major college level who doesn't independently grasp what terrible mismanagement of available time that represents is too stupid to be on the court. Have seen this in practice over and over and *over* again the past several weeks.

down 3 with 28 seconds to go UConn went slow like they were going to take the last shot, which made zero sense because obviously Duke was going to guard the 3 point line. Then Duke fouls with 10 seconds to go which looked like it was intentional (not that it should've been called that way, just that he looked like he meant to do it).

UConn obliges by missing the first one. Now up 2 UConn has to foul, right? Duke was still in the 1 and 1 so you've got a decent chance of getting the ball back with a chance to tie or maybe win.

But instead they trap, which I could see for maybe a second or two, but if Boozer had just stood there and gotten fouled he's shooting foul shots with 4 or 5 seconds to go and Duke has a 95% chance of winning.

With 10 seconds, Duke doesn't have to get the ball up the floor so just hold it in the back court and make them foul you. But evidently Duke thinks it has to get the ball up court which led to the miracle 3.

Both coaches get an F for game management but that twerp Hurley gets bailed out on about the luckiest play you could imagine.

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"It's our blood and bones and these whistles and phones against Miller's and Noem's dirty lies."

First, Duke had a timeout in its pocket. Can't believe Scheyer wouldn't let his guys know this in advance.

But perhaps, more importantly, is that there was 10 seconds left. You can't get a 5-second call in the backcourt. You can just hold onto the ball and make them foul you.

One - on the pass from the middle.

He caught the ball with his back to the basket. His first action should have been rip & pivot to see the court and then decide.

His first action was to put the ball on the ground and turn - this put him in a horrible situation. If he didn't dribble and surveyed the court, he would not have thrown that pass.

The second major failure was no close out on the final shot. You need to close out with hands high and disrupt vision and up stress. You'll notice that is what happenened before the guy got the final pass - and that's why the UConn guy passed it back.

Regardless of the strategy of the last 9 seconds, I'd wager either of those two fundamentals failures could have turned the game.

is to calm your team down. But UConn is absolutely NOT that opponent. Scheyer obviously knows his team much better than I do, but he pushed the wrong button for the entire second half. And then the Devils get an F- for not just getting fouled in the end game situation.

The Cayden Boozer pass struck a nerve for me in particular. Because I've watched my daughter's feeder and now HS basketball team panic and throw roughly a billion fade away passes like that one against the press. To paraphrase George Carlin and Top Gun, calm down, have some dip, hit the brakes, and they'll fly right by. But the correct answer was catch the ball, turtle unless you and your teammate are wiiiiiiiiiiiide open (the first two passes were fine), and get hacked.

which is a shame. I thought that loss was on Scheyer as well.

halfway through the second half. UConn had closed to within like 10 and had the momentum. And the report from the Duke huddle was that Scheyer was trying to calm his guys down and said basically that UConn had made their run and all Duke had to do was execute. That is NOT the right answer in that situation, especially with Danny Hurley on the other bench. It was basically equivalent to Theoden telling his soldiers at Helm's Deep that the Uruk-Hai had made their run. All they had to do was just hold the wall. And then Sauraman runs a play out of the timeout with that one guy carrying the bomb.

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