Duke failed in fundamentals in two key ways

by Supe , VA, Monday, March 30, 2026, 11:01 (2 days ago) @ BillyGoat

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.