This is my favorite part of the year. Now that we have gotten into January and the ACC season is in full swing, every game has great meaning and every environment you play at on the road is tough. We are off to a great start in the ACC with a 5-0 record. Our conference this year is as strong as it has been in many years, so each win you get is extremely important. We just finished off a great week with wins over Georgetown, NC State and Maryland, all at home.
Playing a great non-conference opponent like Georgetown is always a lot of fun. Its one of the reasons why you come to Duke to play. I remember from my playing days, the great games we played against teams like Michigan, Temple and UCLA. Those are some of the games that I will remember forever. These kinds of games always give you a sneak preview of what it would be like to play in a big-time NCAA tournament game. Our guys were really excited about the game and our crowd was amazing. Gerald Henderson had an incredible 1st half in that that game and it carried us to a big win. I didn’t think he was going to ever miss!!
Next, we had to get back into our regular ACC schedule and routine. It was a quick turnaround with a Tuesday night game against NC State. NC State is a team that is extremely dangerous because they have good talent, especially in the frontcourt, and they seem to always to be ready to play against us. We felt like our guys were ready to play, but we got off to a terrible shooting start to the game. We only shot 20% in the first half and we trailed by four. At halftime, our staff told our guys that we were getting great shots and we just needed to keep shooting with the ball with confidence. The main thing we needed to keep doing was play great defense and hopefully wear them down. In the 2nd half we really turned it on. We shot an amazing 20-26 FGs and ended up winning 73-56.
To finish off the week, we had Maryland coming to town. Over the years, we have always had great games with Maryland. It doesn’t seem to ever matter what the teams records are. In fact, Maryland had been able to come into Cameron and win more than any other team in the past 10 years, so we knew that we had to be ready to play. It was a unique start time at noon, so one of the most important things was making sure our guys were up and ready to go once the ball was tipped. Well, our guys were sure ready! We put together maybe our best 40 minutes of the season on offense and defense and won 85-44. Overall, it was a great performance. The best part of the game was watching the unselfishness that our guys played with on offense. On our 31 FGs, we had 23 assists, and there were a couple fastbreaks where everyone touched the ball and it never hit the floor. We have really been stressing with our team that when we play together and share the ball, we are really a good team.
It was exciting to see our guys recognized as being the #1 team in the country. These guys have really worked hard, and although the goal is to be #1 at the end of the year, it is an honor that we are proud of. Being #1 is not something we talk about on a daily basis. We just want to keep getting better and fully realize the potential of our group. We realize that there is still a long ways to go with the season. Other teams will always give Duke their best shot, so where we are ranked doesn’t really matter with that either. We know we don’t have any time to celebrate as we play at Wake Forest next. They are an incredible team, we are going to have to be at our best to have a chance to win on their home court.
Until next time, GO DUKE!!
Coach Collins
