Around 9pm on an abnormally warm Syracuse night on Wednesday, Coach Kryzewski and his Duke bench watched with bated breath and crossed fingers once the shot made it past the trio of defenders. On the other side of the scorer’s table, Coach Boeheim was already walking back to grab his white board for overtime. After a morale--blowing loss at Georgia Tech the Sunday before, Syracuse’s season hung in the fate of a 25-foot, last second shot.
30,000 plus gathered in the Carrier Dome behind the call voices of Dick Vitale and Karl Ravech. The Orange faithful were not giving up on their team just yet, even as the Duke Blue Devils took the court with an air of confidence only they could have after bouncing back to a ranking among the top ten teams in the country. The cheers were deafening as the midcourt referee tossed the ball up, and the fight for a season between two rivals was on.
Taurean Thompson had a hot start for Syracuse, but he cooled off quickly, as did the rest of the team, falling behind by more than 10 points. The Orange had Duke foul trouble going for them, much to the delight of the Grayson Allen critics in the crowd.
Jayson Tatum racked up point after point and rebound after rebound as Duke demolished the Orange on the boards, especially offensively. He had yet another game that etched him into the shining stars list of this season, ready to enter the NBA draft in a few short months.
Even with stellar rebounding, graduate transfer John Gillon was back to his old ways as he shot to the basket time after time with a few opportune outside shots, cutting the deficit to only eight points before halftime.
Once the final twenty minutes began ticking down, it seemed as if two different teams were playing. While the Blue Devils continued to pound on the offensive glass, the Syracuse defense was finding itself, and Tyus Battle was finding his stroke as it hit thirteen minutes left. After cutting the lead two or three points and being foiled each time by a timely three from Luke Kennard, a dunk by Tatum, or a jumper by Allen, the game hit its turn-around point as Gillon sank his 41st free throw in a row (he would have 44 straight by the end of the night). The crowd was behind their Orangemen and Duke was starting to feel the pressure. Coach K was sitting down in his chair, leaning back with arms crossed, more than frustrated with his team as he watched the two-point lead changes and ties jump back and forth on each possession.
As the final stretch began, Tyler Lydon, who had been a quiet force al game, came up big, as did Battle and Gillon. Battle buried three consecutive jumpers and Lydon grabbed some key rebounds. With under two minutes to go and Kennard and Allen with four fouls, Gillon kept driving at them, feeling contact but getting no call from the refs, much to his chagrin.
The game was tied at 75 with 57 seconds left and Syracuse failed to convert on their possession, giving Duke a shot clock plus 7 to work with. Kennard handled the ball most of the thirty seconds and Gillon played him tightly, forcing him to throw up a horrific shot as shot clock neared zero. After hardly any one-shot defensive rebounds all night, Lydon was able to corral the ball and fire it to Gillon with 7 seconds left. As Gillon dribbled up the court, three Duke defenders were facing him, but the one closest made the mistake of backpedaling, and that was all the point guard needed to get off a strangely-balanced shot with 1.4 seconds left.
As the ball soared through the air, Gillon started to walk backwards, watching, while his teammates flew to the boards just in case, all expecting overtime as their season and tournament hopes hung in the balance of that last ditch shot. The whole building was holding their breath as things seemed to move in slow motion and the ball inched closer as the backboard lit up red, signaling the end of regulation if the ball bounced away. The banks had been open all night in Syracuse and lo and behold, they had a little bit of magic left in them as the ball bounce neatly off the backboard and swished through the hoop.
The fans stormed court as the Duke players walked off in disbelief, along with Coach Boeheim, as he reiterated many times in the post-game press conference that it was luck and he was shocked. With a 78-75 victory over No. 10 Duke, don’t count the Orange out yet.
Both Duke and Syracuse take the court again this weekend. Duke plays at Miami on Saturday at 4:00 on CBS. Syracuse visits Louisville for a rematch of their overtime thriller on Sunday at 2:00 on CBS as well.
