Duke's Season Ends With 73-67 Loss to WVU

Taylor King's head was wrapped in a towel. Nolan Smith stared down at the floor and spoke in a near-whisper.

That's the thing about the NCAA Tournament. Unless you win six games, you'll finish your season with a loss — and they all sting.

Duke survived a first-round nail-biter against Belmont Thursday, but it couldn't get out of the NCAA Tournament's first weekend.

West Virginia sent the No. 2 seed Blue Devils back to Durham, defeating them 73-67 Saturday afternoon at the Verizon Center.

The Mountaineers (26-10), the West Regional's No. 7 seed, advance to the regional semifinal Thursday night in Phoenix.

After making the round of 16 nine straight seasons from 1999 through 2006, the Devils (28-6) have failed to get there two straight seasons. A year ago, they lost to Virginia Commonwealth in the first round.

"It's very emotional," Greg Paulus said. "I'm sad that we're not going to go to practice tomorrow (and) be with these guys playing another game."

West Virginia will play during the tournament's second week for the third time in four seasons. The Mountaineers advanced to the Elite Eight in 2005 and the round of 16 in 2006 before winning the NIT a year ago.

"We had a great year," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "I think we were a little worn down.

"Our kids did a great job this year."

But in a matter of just a few possessions, a lead that Duke had held for most of the first half and the first five minutes of the second half slipped away — and with it went the Devils' season.

In the first half, Duke rode a balanced scoring attack — eight Devils scored —and 12 for 12 shooting from the free-throw line to a 34-29 halftime advantage. Gerald Henderson led the Devils for the second straight game with 18 points and Jon Scheyer added 15.

Joe Alexander led West Virginia with 22 points and Alex Ruoff added 17.

The Devils kept the large throng of West Virginia fans glued to their seats for the majority of the first 25 minutes, mostly because they defended the 3-point arc extremely well. West Virginia missed all six of its first-half three-point attempts.

That changed, however, in a matter of seconds. Back-to-back 3s by Darris Nichols and Alex Ruoff tied the game 37-37. Ruoff's was a fade-away from in front of the West Virginia bench with the shot clock running out.

"We played great defense and I was on him when he hit that shot," Scheyer said, "and I knew he was going to shoot it because (of the shot clock) — I just didn't want to foul.

"For some reason, when he shot it, I knew it was going in."

Ruoff's shot sent much of the capacity crowd into a frenzy, and his teammates — all of a sudden — got his hot shooting touch. A 3 by Alexander, followed by a midrange jumper by Ruoff and a finger roll by Joe Mazzulla, gave the Mountaineers a 47-40 advantage and forced Krzyzewski to call a timeout.

Duke never got closer than four points the rest of the way.

A big difference in the game was the 3-point shooting by both teams. The Mountaineers connected on four of five 3s in the second half while Duke made three — but they were all in the final 2 minutes — and finished the game with five triples.

After two early 3s by Paulus, the Devils went approximately 34 minutes without a triple.

"We rely on 3-point shooting (and) we're 5-for-22," Krzyzewski said. "I'm glad my guys took them, and I didn't think they were bad (shots), but we needed to shoot a better percentage and finish a little bit better."

The Devils will likely have bigger regrets about their rebounding performance. The Mountaineers weren't a bigger team, but in the second half, they out-rebounded Duke 25-11 and finished the game with a 47-27 edge on the boards.

"They're not a big team, but they're a physical team and they're able to get into us and push us underneath our basket," Kyle Singler said, "and they're able to grab a lot of offensive rebounds.

"And that really killed us."

The Mountaineers converted 19 offensive boards into 17 second-chance points. Duke had a mere five points off five offensive rebounds.

The real killer for Duke was that 6-foot-2 backup point guard Mazzulla grabbed 11 rebounds, including five on the offensive end, for the Mountaineers. He also scored 13 points and dished out eight assists in 31 minutes

"No, we knew he was good," Krzyzewski said when asked if he was aware of Mazzulla's abilities from watching tape, "being more of a driver, tough, really good athlete — tough kid.

"But it seemed for awhile there he just got so many rebounds. Like if they played lacrosse, he'd be the guy on the faceoff, and whenever there was a loose ball or a scrum, all of a sudden, look, (there is) No. 3.

"And he was just the story. I think he's the difference-maker in the game, there's no question about it."

Duke fought to the end, aggressively attacking the basket, but West Virginia had every answer. And the Devils' two leading scorers this season — DeMarcus Nelson and Singler — never got untracked.

The senior and freshman, respectively, entered the game averaging a combined 28.3 points per game, but they managed just six points apiece. Nelson scored eight points in Duke's two tournament games..

Singler picked up his fourth foul on a reach-in with 12:43 remaining and never got into the offensive flow, making one of just three attempted shots.

Nelson had plenty of opportunities to score, but the ball simply didn't fall for him. His wide-open 3-pointer would have cut Duke's deficit of 52-46 in half, but it clanged off the back of the rim.

"I mean, I got great looks around the basket (and on) 3s" said Nelson, who made two of 11 shots. "I mean, we all got great looks. And we didn't do a good job — me especially — of capitalizing on those opportunities that we had around the basket and on the perimeter."

Once West Virginia claimed the lead at 40-38 — for the first time since it was ahead 4-3 — it answered every push the Devils made. In fact, Duke didn't score back-to-back baskets the entire second half.

"It was extremely frustrating, because you could tell that we were trying to fight back, we were trying to stop that surge," David McClure said, "… and it just seemed like every single time we got a little air in our tires, they kept deflating it."

Two Alexander free throws extended West Virginia's margin to eight at 54-46, and little-used Cam Thoroughman's layup off a backdoor cut made the score 57-47 with about 5:20 to play.

Thoroughman, who entered the game averaging 5.6 minutes and 1.3 points in just 14 games played, scored four crucial ones for the Mountaineers and added four rebounds in 9 second-half minutes.

"You can tell he's a blue-collar player," Ruoff said. "He doesn't mind getting in there and mixing it up. He had huge rebounds for us tonight, which helped us. I think it (his performance) speaks for itself."

The officials called the game closely, and both teams were in the double bonus by the 7-minute mark of the second half. But West Virginia shot much better from the line down the stretch than the Devils. The Mountaineers shot 19-for-22 from the stripe while Duke made 24 of 32, but just 12 of 20 in the second half.

Trailing 64-52 with less than 3 minutes to play, Henderson had a chance to cut Duke's deficit to 10, but he missed a pair from the line. That was basically the end for the Devils.

After falling behind 4-0, the Devils went on a 14-0 run that had Lance Thomas motioning with his arms to pump up the crowd even though most of the spectators were cheering against the Devils.

The spurt was sparked by two long 3-pointers by Paulus, who was off-balance when he launched the second rainbow. Paulus also connected with Henderson on a rim-rattling alley-oop.

Duke wasn't able to build on its margin, however. The Devils turned the ball over eight times in the half, although the miscues led to only two West Virginia points.

After the game, Scheyer talked about one possession toward the end of the half when he and Paulus had wide-open 3s that would have extended Duke's lead to 10 points. Instead, they clanged off the rim and West Virginia scored to go into halftime down five and with a bit of momentum.

Mazzulla sparked the Mountaineers from the beginning, penetrating the lane and finding Da'Sean Butler and John Flowers for layups, and Flowers' dunk with just over 10 minutes left in the half cut Duke's advantage to 18-15.

The Devils' lead vacillated between three and seven points the rest of the half.

Against Duke's in-your-face, man-to-man defense, the lightning-quick Mazzulla was West Virginia coach Bob Huggins' best weapon.

"Joe's our best guy at just straight lining, driving the ball to the goal," Huggins said. "So I didn't know he would play as well as he played, but I thought that he had a chance to relieve some of the pressure and drive it at the basket just because of his style of play."

In the first half, Krzyzewski experimented with several lineups the Devils have used sparingly — or not at all — during the season. At one point, the 6-8 Thomas and 7-1 Brian Zoubek were on the floor; points guards Paulus and Smith also played together; finally, Krzyzewski sat both of them and had Scheyer run the point for a couple minutes.

The different lineups didn't hurt or help the Devils, as they traded baskets with the Mountaineers. Neither team scored back-to-back baskets during the final 6-plus minutes of the half.

And that continued in the final 20 minutes for the Devils — but not the Mountaineers — leaving Duke's players despondent as they pondered how another NCAA Tournament ended so quickly for them.