Blue Devils shoot 70% in second half, make clutch plays down stretch to reach Elite 8
Here comes second-half Duke, winners of another NCAA tournament game.
The Blue Devils torched the No. 1 defense in the country in the second half and got clutch buckets from Jeremy Roach and Paolo Banchero in a 78-73 win over Texas Tech on Thursday night at Chase Center in San Francisco.
No. 2-seed Duke (31-6) advances to an Elite 8 game against No. 4 Arkansas, which knocked off the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga 74-68, on Saturday night.
For a while, it looked like this would be where the journey ended for Duke and coach Mike Krzyzewski.
Duke trailed by four at halftime and shot 36.7% in the first half, but found an offensive rhythm early in the second half. The Blue Devils made 10 of their first 17 shots from the field in the second half and held a couple of one-possession leads, at 49-47 and 56-55.
Duke took the lead for good on Banchero’s 3-pointer with 2:55 left that gave the Blue Devils a 69-68 lead. Roach made a couple of mid-range jumpers 46 seconds apart to put the lead at five, and Duke made five free throws in the last 30 seconds to keep Texas Tech (27-10) at arm’s length.
Duke shot 17-for-24 (70.8%) in the second half, making its final eight shots. Banchero scored a game-high 22 points and Roach had 15, while Mark Williams scored 12 of his 16 points in the second half.
The win means Duke keeps playing in Krzyzewski’s final season as coach – the latest milestone here is that the win was his 100th career victory in the NCAA tournament.
Texas Tech threw the first punch, jumping out to a 10-2 lead and forcing Krzyzewski’s hand to call a timeout before the first media timeout.
Duke settled in after that – the Blue Devils made nine of 15 shots after missing their first three, and briefly led 24-22 with about seven minutes left in the first half. To that point, Duke was 9-for-18 from the field.
That’s when the Blue Devils went cold.
Duke missed eight straight shots and 10 of its last 12 going into halftime, allowing Texas Tech to lead by as much as 33-26 in the final minute of the first half.
A three-point play by Banchero on Duke’s final possession of the half sliced the deficit to four, at 33-29, at halftime.
