Duke and UNC took care of business as usual, although Davidson gave the Blue Devils a nice little scare. The other two teams in the ACC playing on Wednesday night decided not to show up though.
Harvard 82 BC 70
Days after beating #1 UNC, #24 BC gave Harvard their first ever win against a ranked opponent, falling 82-70.
The factor of the game was turnover percentage. After taking care of the ball and playing great defense against the Heels on Sunday, Boston College was just a shadow of their former selves on Wednesday. In the first half BC jumped to an early lead, but when the turnovers started happening around the 8 minute mark in the 1st half, the lead disappeared.
To read more about the BC loss, BC All Access already gave us a breakdown of the game here.
Morgan State 66 Maryland 65
Shhhhh. If you listen closely, you can probably hear Gary Williams either still fussing out his team, or at the very least at himself after a 66-65 loss to Morgan State. The loss comes only a day or so after Greivis Vasquez proclaimed this team as different than last year's squad due to how hard they work. Apparently, last year's team showed up last night.
The Terps had a FG% of just 35% last night thanks to shooting 1-14 from the three point line. In particular, Vasquez was 5-21 shooting including 1-9 from three.
Defensively, the Terps weren't much better, especially at stopping Reggie Holmes. Holmes scored 27 points, including 5 threes while staying almost exclusively on the perimeter. Holmes took 18 of his 22 shots outside the paint against the Terps.
This is a game where the Terps won or matched at every single tempo-based factor, but the three point shot was the difference. Morgan State scored 24 points to Maryland's 3 from beyond the arc.
Here was Vasquez's quote before the game...
This season it's a different story. Vasquez is as frank as ever but clearly more content. He likes his hard-working team.
After Saturday's win over Charlotte, Vasquez said: "Every home game, regardless of who we play, we have to win. If we win on Wednesday [against Morgan State] and win eight games in the ACC, we put ourselves in a really good position."
Here's to second guessing one's self!
Duke 79 Davidson 67
Hats off to Stephen Curry, he is one fascinating player. Unfortunately, Curry didn't have enough help on Wednesday night.
Duke went on big run late in the first half and early in the 2nd, leading by as much as 25 before Davidson's coach told his team they needed to fight...
"They expose you, they undress you," Davidson coach Bob McKillop said of Duke. "And unless you stand in the center of the ring and fight, you [will] never be able to be successful against Duke."
The Davidson coach saw his team scrap to within 8 points late, but the Wildcats saw Duke's new secret weapon re-emerge.
What? You haven't heard it yet? Don't let the media trick you into thinking this Duke team is the same 3 point shooting, no inside game, team that was out-toughed by West Virginia last March.
The new secret weapon is the offensive rebound. The Blue Devils once again won in offensive rebound %, but the Blue Devils dominated the offensive glass late and stopped the furious Davidson run.
In fact, you might argue that the reason Davidson went on the run in the first place is because they started hitting the defensive boards. Check it out as our factor of the game...
