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The wheels came off of the Duke wagon today when West Virginia sent the Devils packing and wondering how they couldn't find a way to put the ball in the basket in the beginning of the second half. On this afternoon, the Dukies truly died by the three pointer and their inability to hit the boards during the games key moments. The Mountaineers out-rebounded Duke 47-27 scoring 17 points on offensive rebounding.

DeMarcus Nelson closed out his senior year with a dreadful game from the field scoring just 6 points. Unlike the rest of the Blue Devils, he will not be around to avenge the bitter ending to this season. It is certainly a game that both fans and players want to forget about, but that will be hard in that most of the media will use this loss to take multiple shots and the sad truth is that Duke has not shown the ability to go deep in the NCAA's in the last couple of seasons.

Duke looked shaken and tired as the game went on. The effort was there but it wasn't enough to offset Duke not playing it's usual style of scoring easy baskets and padding the lead with the three ball. After leading by five at the half, Duke imploded on the offensive end in the second half. No matter how you cut it Duke was outplayed and the team seemed to have very tired legs, many shots going off the front of the rim.

It's no wonder that the fatigue helped produce the worst offensive performances this season. Give credit to West Virginia for their toughness and not allowing Duke one single point on the break.

Only time will tell if this team which returns all but one player can use this defeat as motivation. Unfortunately, it will be a long time before the ball is thrown into play for Duke again and you can bet that the anti Duke media will be there to remind all of the loss in the months to come.

Still, this team won some big games this season, defeating the top ranked Tar Heels and many of teams still in the tournament. Duke will regroup over the summer and tweak the areas of the game which contributed to the loss and late season swoon. While this is an especially bitter defeat, I can still say I am proud to be a Duke fan and can't wait to hit the AAU trail to see who the future Blue Devils might be. Nobody likes the losses, but this was a fun team to watch and they'll work hard to make sure this doesn't happen next season. Duke finishes the 2007-08 season 28-6.

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Western Regional Round 2 West Virginia vs Duke

by Mark Watson on Sat 22 Mar 2008 01:03 AM EDT

West Virginia Off vs. Duke Def	Duke Off vs. West Virginia Def
74.7 Pts F 69.3 Pts A 45.5 FG% 43.6 FG% 31.8 Reb. 33.1 Reb.	83.7 Pts F 63.3 Pts A 46.4 FG% 42.1 FG% 33.1 Reb. 29.7 Reb.

Mark's take - Duke squeaked past Belmont to make it to the second round where they will take on another pesky team in West Virginia. The Mountaineers go about eight players deep and are led by Joe Alexander, a player who goes inside and out. Alexander, Ruoff, Butler and Nichols all score in double figures. Wellington Smith adds 55 blocks and often mans the middle.

Duke will likely attack the guards and go right back to their pressure defense. Belmont seemed a step quicker all night long in the opener, causing Duke to back off playing the passing lanes late in the game. I fully expect Duke to regroup and come out playing hard from beginning to end advancing to the Sweet 16. This of course is if they hit their three point shots and take care of the ball and hit a decent percentage from the free throw stripe. The pick here is Duke 77 West Virginia 71

Bob Green's take - the struggle against Belmont took me by suprise, but we survived and advanced. Today, our opponent is another school that likes the perimeter game. West Virginia took 721 3-point shots this season and made 259 or 35.9% of them. They also take care of the basketball averaging only 11.1 turnovers per contest.

Joe Alexander, a 6'8" 230 pound forward, is their leading scorer at 16.7 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game. Duke's first action item will be to contain Alexander. Next, the Blue Devils must defend the 3-point line and force West Virginia to attempt contested 2-point shots. In their win over Arizona, the Mountaineers were successful on 11 of 19 3-point attempts. 6'6" Alex Ruoff went five for seven and 6'3" Darris Nichols went four for seven from behind the arc. Duke must do a better job defending West Virginia's perimeter players.

On offense, we need to attack inside and challenge West Virginia to stop us. We need to get the Mountaineers into foul trouble and convert from the free throw line. Once the inside game is working, we need to knock down our outside shots. Finally, West Virginia plays an eight man rotation with four players averaging over 30 minutes per game. We must utilize our depth and have fresh legs at crunch time. I envision a tough game for 40 minutes but ultimately Duke will prevail.

My prediction: Duke 75 - West Virginia 70.

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