The Virginia Tech men’s basketball team went into Cameron Indoor Stadium expecting to win Sunday night but came up short against the No. 6 Duke Blue Devils, 67-55.
“We came in here trying to win the game,” said junior guard Dorenzo Hudson. “We didn’t come in here to try to take second place. I feel like we came out on the short end of the stick.”
Tech (21-5, 8-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) was out of sync all night as the Hokies dealt with foul trouble throughout the game.
“We knew they were going to call ticky-tac fouls coming into the game to push us out to half-court to make it hard to run our offense,” Hudson said. “For the most part, we couldn’t get the offense going in the game.”
Hokies’ forward Jeff Allen picked up his second foul of the first half with 12:56 remaining in the game, and star guard Malcolm Delaney was also issued three fouls in the first period.
Entering the second half, Allen asserted himself and got back into the flow of the game with a layup on Tech’s first possession to pull the score to 32-35, but Allen picked up two quick fouls with 9:16 and 7:09 left in the half to put him at four, which sank the Hokies’ chances.
With Allen’s fourth foul, which occurred against Duke center Brian Zoubek on a made layup, the Devils (23-4, 11-2 ACC) quickly stretched their lead from two to eight in just 20 seconds, deflating the Hokies just after they had taken a 45-44 lead with 9:54 left in the game.
In addition to Allen, junior forward Terrell Bell picked up his fourth foul with 8:19 left, and the Hokies were forced to go with a small lineup to the benefit of the Devils.
Both teams played excellent defense, but the game was won for the Devils on the boards, as the 7-foot-1 inch Zoubek hauled in 16 rebounds alone, contributing to the 27 second chance points by Duke.
“We’ve got to rebound the ball and secure the basketball,” said Tech head coach Seth Greenberg. “You can’t give your opponent that many extra possessions.
“(Zoubek) is a mountain-masquerading as a man. He’s a huge human being. He’s not too far from the basket once he rebounds the ball…He’s got a good, physical body and good hands.”
Despite its foul trouble and rebounding woes, the Hokies managed to stay in the game all the way until the Devils’ Nolan Smith nailed a three-pointer with 55 seconds left to make the score 55-64, Duke.
Tech held the Devils to 29 percent shooting for the game on 18-of-62 shooting, but the big three for the Devils, Kyle Singler, Smith and Jon Scheyer combined for 63 of Duke’s 67 total points.
Even though the Devils struggled mightily from the field, the Hokies did just as much, shooting 32.8 percent for the game on 19-of-58 shooting. Tech made one more field goal than the Devils, but Duke converted on 10 three-pointers to Tech’s two.
The shooting woes can be attributed to the lack of an inside game since Allen was only able to play 19 total minutes due to fouls.
“It was just a hard fought game,” Greenberg said. “But we didn’t come here to compete hard and we didn’t come here to be a team that played Duke closer than other teams have. We came in here to win the basketball game. Now our mindset is to try to fix some things and get ourselves ready to play a very good Boston College team that’s coming off a great win against Carolina.”
Tech continues its season on the road Wednesday night at Boston College at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPNU.