Out-Duked
Blue Devils pull away late for ACC home win
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
February 11, 2004

DURHAM, N.C. – UVa coach Pete Gillen gave the best summation on his team’s performance Wednesday night at No. 1 Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“We gave it our absolute best and it just was not good enough tonight,” said Gillen, after his team lost its fifth straight with a 93-75 setback. “Winston Churchill said, ‘Do the best you can, where you are, with what you’ve got.’ … I thought tonight we did the best we could.”

J.J. Redick, a Roanoke native, scored a game-high 25 points to lead five Blue Devils into double figures as they won their 39th straight contest at home, 10th straight against Virginia at Cameron and fifth straight against Virginia overall.

“I thought kids played well, especially in the second half,” said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “This has been a week with a lot of adversity for us with guys sick or hurt and Virginia played real well and with a lot of heart.”

Shelden Williams had 19 points and 12 rebounds for the Blue Devils (21-1, 10-0 ACC).

Elton Brown had 24 and J.R. Reynolds added a career-high 16 for the Cavaliers (12-9, 2-8 ACC).

While the outcome and even margin may not have been a surprise given the current states of the two teams, the game was quite competitive throughout.

The Blue Devils led 12-3 after the first two and a half minutes and ultimately led 47-38 at halftime.

The expected script would go something like this: The Blue Devils came out strong in the second half, Virginia falls behind by 20 and the game is non-competitive for the final, say, 12 minutes.

Virginia forgot to play its role.

The Cavaliers quickly cut into the Duke lead and when Todd Billet connected on a pull-up jumper with 15:09 left in the game, the score was 52-47.

Moments later, Derrick Byars, who hadn’t made in a 3-pointer in nearly a month and a half, drilled a trey from the top of the key to make it 57-54 with 13:21 to play.

Virginia’s comeback effort was without the services of Jason Clark and just limited play from Byars. Clark fouled out with 17:22 left in the second half after two quick fouls and Byars eventually fouled out with 11:38 left. The fouls whistled against Clark were literally so quick that Gillen had little opportunity to get the 6-foot-8 forward out of the game.

“I didn’t know he had his fourth foul. He had a quick one right away at the other end and I didn’t see what happened. Then he got his fifth one. It certainly didn’t determine the game but it hurt us,” Gillen said.

Actually, what likely cost the Cavaliers game and hurt them even more came moments after cutting the deficit to three.

Redick drove down the lane and made contact with Brown, almost simultaneously to releasing the ball. What followed was perhaps the oddest call left in college basketball.

The officials called a charge on Redick, yet also counted the basket. In essence, they ruled that Redick released the ball just before making contact with Brown. It’s a call that is in the rulebook but is called even less than a three-second violation in the lane.

“We fought back hard and cut the lead to three. Honestly, I’ve never seen them make that call. That whole charge but the bucket is good thing. I’ve never even heard of that. I didn’t think it was a rule,” Brown said.

The play ignited a 15-5 Duke run as the Blue Devils jumped to a 74-59 advantage on a Chris Duhon-to-Williams alley-oop with 8:18 remaining.

The Cavaliers would get no closer than 12 the rest of the way as Duke pushed the lead to as many as 22 in the waning minutes.

“We had a chance. I knew we had a long way to go. When you’re playing with a lot of young guys, you kind of look at the game with one eye because you don’t want to know what’s going to happen next,” Gillen said. “We made some mistakes tonight but I thought we played with courage. … We gave it our best.”

Note. Devin Smith didn’t play Wednesday and was in street clothes on the UVa bench. Smith, plagued with a herniated disc in his back, simply was unable to play because of the injury against the Blue Devils.

 

Cavs refuse to quit vs. Blue Devils
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
February 11, 2004

DURHAM, N.C.
Pete Gillen said after last Saturday’s home loss to N.C. State that his team wasn’t throwing in the towel.
Obviously, the Cavaliers listened.
Cameron Indoor Stadium is perhaps the toughest place to play in America. Often teams unravel before their coach’s very eyes, in part due to the intimidating atmosphere, but mostly because of Duke’s endless stream of McDonald’s All-Americans.
If Virginia wanted to give up, this would understandably be as good a place as any to do so.

A tough stretch
Nothing had been going right for the Cavaliers in recent weeks. They had played poorly at home, casting heat upon Gillen from UVa fans.
And the road? Forget about it. The Wahoos had pretty much forgotten what it was like to walk off an opponents’ court with a win in their back pocket.
Give Gillen credit. He wouldn’t let his guys quit. The embattled coach did everything he could to get Virginia up for the game against the No. 1 team in the nation on its home court.
While the Cavaliers were 22-point underdogs and lost by 18, it was a better game than the final score indicated. If being such a prohibitive underdog wasn’t enough of a handicap, the Cavs went into the game without junior Devin Smith (the team’s second-leading scorer), who sat out with back problems.
Gillen told his team that it would be a moment they would cherish some day, playing the country’s No. 1 team.
“Coach told us to keep fighting,” said junior center Elton Brown, who did his part with 24 points and eight rebounds. “He also told us that if he saw anyone with their head down, he was going to take them out of the game.”
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski took notice in Brown’s improved play.
“When Elton Brown plays like that, he is as good a big guy as there is in this league,” Krzyzewski said. “In the last five games, he as really stepped up.”

Plenty of fight
That’s one thing Gillen didn’t have to worry about. Outmanned, his team fought hard in a 93-75 defeat. This time they didn’t collapse late in the first half and didn’t get buried early in the second half.
In fact, when UVa trailed 47-38 at halftime, it was the most points Duke had surrendered in the first half since the Blue Devils won in Charlottesville last month. Virginia’s 75 points was the most scored on Duke in regulation since the Devils lost their only game of the season to Purdue on Nov. 29.
“Winston Churchill said, ‘Do the best you can, where you are, with what you’ve got,’” Gillen quoted the legendary British prime minister. “I thought tonight we did the best we could. We played as hard as we could.”
In fact, had the Cavaliers played this hard all season, they might be considered a bubble team at this point of the season rather than taking up residence in the ACC cellar at 12-9, 2-8. It was UVa’s 17th loss in its last 18 ACC road games.
“[Virginia] came out playing with a lot of confidence and we were just right there with them, but we had to take it even to a higher level,” said Duke senior point guard Chris Duhon.
The Cavaliers definitely got the Blue Devils’ attention with a little more than 13 minutes remaining when Brown scored back-to-back baskets and Derrick Byars nailed a 3-pointer to cut Duke’s lead to three at 57-54.
But the Devils benefited from a score by J.J. Redick off a drive to the hoop on a charge call, which ignited a 6-0 run. At that point Byars joined Jason Clark on the bench, both having fouled out and left Gillen with a lineup of three freshmen (J.R. Reynolds, Gary Forbes, Jason Cain), Brown and Todd Billet.
Moments later, Reynolds came out with a jammed thumb, replaced by freshman point guard T.J. Bannister and Duke slowly pulled away to claim its fifth straight win over the Cavs, the ninth in a row at Cameron.
“I think we played harder tonight that we did up in Charlottesville against Duke,” Gillen said later of a 22-point loss at UVa on Jan. 11. “I thought we had a chance [at 57-54], but I knew we had a long way to go.
“When you’re playing with a lot of young guys, you kind of look at the game with one eye because you don’t know what’s going to happen next, and we made a couple of mistakes.”
In the face of defeat, it was a trip that could ignite the Cavaliers for their home game against Georgia Tech on Saturday.
“We have 25 percent of the season left,” Gillen said. “Hopefully we can play this hard.”
Brown believes if that happens, the Cavaliers can still salvage something.
“We took a big-time step forward tonight,” Brown said. “But there’s no such thing as moral victories.”
Perhaps not. However, if a hard-fought lost against No. 1 sparks a stronger effort against anyone else, it was worth it.
 

Duke just too much for Cavs
By ED MILLER, The Virginian-Pilot
© February 12, 2004

DURHAM, N.C. — Shorthanded and riding a four-game losing streak is no way to come into Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Given the circumstances, Virginia played about as well as it could have hoped Wednesday night, and still fell to No. 1 Duke 93-75 in front of 9,314.

“We played as hard as we could,” coach Pete Gillen said. “We didn’t play great. But I thought we played very good.” These days, with Virginia tied for last place in the ACC and Gillen’s job security, or lack thereof, a hot topic, 40 minutes of solid effort against a team of Duke’s caliber is cause for encouragement in Cavalier country — to a point, anyway.

“We took a big step forward,” center Elton Brown said. “But like coach says, there’s no such thing as a moral victory.”

Brown led Virginia with 24 points and eight rebounds on a night in which the Cavaliers were without forward Devin Smith, who is arguably their best player.

Smith, who has played all season with a herniated disc in his back, simply wasn’t able to perform, Gillen said.

“He hasn’t practiced in a month,” Gillen said. Smith’s absence left Virginia (12-9, 2-8 ACC) a man down against a Duke team that provides opponents little margin for error — particularly at home. Wednesday’s win was Duke’s 39th straight at Cameron.

“Virginia was playing really well,” coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “They put us in a tough position and we responded, which was nice to see.”

Gillen used his seventh different starting lineup in as many games, giving freshman point guard T.J. Bannister his first start. Guards Todd Billet and J.R.

Reynolds also started, as Virginia attempted to match Duke’s quickness.

Duke (21-1, 10-0) jumped to a 12-3 lead but Virginia took the blow and stayed within 10 points through the first half.

Reynolds helped keep things close with 11 first-half points, nine on 3-pointers.

The Cavaliers made things interesting early in the second half, cutting Duke’s lead to 57-54 with 13:21 left.

Brown then drew a charge on J.J. Redick, but Redick’s layup counted and Duke had a five-point lead. The lead was seven, 65-58, when the Blue Devils ripped off a quick 9-1 run that stretched it to 15.

Shelden Williams got things started with a couple of inside baskets over freshman Jason Cain, who was pressed into action after Jason Clark and Derrick Byars fouled out. Clark picked up his fourth with 18:15 remaining and his fifth, on a charge, just 55 seconds later.

Gillen said he didn’t realize Clark had picked up his fourth foul.

After Williams scored over Cain, he swatted a Brown shot that led to an alley-oop pass and dunk from Chris Duhon to Luol Deng. Deng then stole the ball from Brown and flipped it to Duhon, who threw a behind-the-back pass to Williams for a driving dunk.

“We’re pretty dangerous when we get off and running, and we finally started to get into a little rhythm,” Duhon said.

Redick led Duke with 25 points, including four 3-pointers. Williams added 19, along with 12 rebounds and four blocks.

Duke is headed for a Sunday showdown at N.C. State, which is two games back in the ACC standings. Virginia will attempt to duplicate the effort it showed Wednesday on Saturday against Georgia Tech.

“Hopefully, we can play hard and improve our execution,” Gillen said.
 

Attrition hurts Virginia
UVa makes a second-half run, but Jason Clark and Derrick Byars foul out to hurt the Cavaliers.
By Doug Doughty
doug.doughty@roanoke.com
981-3129

DURHAM, N.C. - In its efforts to escape the ACC's cellar, Virginia could not have found a less inviting venue than Cameron Indoor Stadium.

The Cavaliers gave top-ranked Duke a momentary scare, but the Blue Devils pulled away in the final 10 minutes Wednesday night for their 39th consecutive home victory, 93-75.

It was the 17th loss in the past 18 ACC road games for Virginia, which had trimmed a 13-point first-half deficit to 57-54 on a 3-pointer by sophomore Derrick Byars with 13:21 remaining.

It was the second 3-point field goal of the game for Byars, who before Wednesday night had not made a 3-pointer since Jan.5. However, when Byars picked up two fouls in three seconds and fouled out with 11:38 left, the Cavaliers were left seriously short-handed.

Second-leading scorer Devin Smith, whose herniated disk had prevented him from starting in recent games, made the trip but was not in uniform. Plus, by the time Byars fouled out, starting post man Jason Clark was long gone, having picked up his fifth foul with 17:22 left.

It was 65-58 with less than 10 minutes remaining, but the Blue Devils used a 9-1 spurt to lock up their 18th win in a row. Duke (21-1, 10-0) has not lost since Nov.29, when Purdue beat the Blue Devils in the Great Alaska Shootout.

Virginia (12-9, 2-8) has lost five games in a row, but the Cavaliers certainly have looked worse than they did Wednesday night, when they shot 47.4 percent from the field, hitting seven of 14 3-point attempts.

Junior Elton Brown finished with a team-high 24 points, his second 24-point game sandwiched around a five-point performance in the past three games. The Cavaliers also got 16 points from freshman J.R. Reynolds, who had a career high for the third time in six games.

"To be a freshman and the way he shoots the ball and the poise he has on offense, with the commitment he has on defense, he's going to be one of the great ones at Virginia," Brown said. "This is one of the most hostile environments we go into and to watch him, you never would have known it."

Reynolds started the game with a 3-pointer, which was immediately matched by his former Roanoke schoolboy rival, Duke sophomore J.J. Redick. Redick scored the Blue Devils' first eight points, causing UVa coach Pete Gillen to call his first timeout with 18:39 left in the first half.

Redick finished with a game-high 25 points to lead five Blue Devils scorers in double figures. One of his biggest field goals came with the score 57-54, when he drove the lane for a basket that counted even though he was whistled for a foul.

"I'd never heard of the basket counting like that," Brown said. "That was a big, big play in the game. I was under him when he charged and I fell on my hip. I had to go out of the game and, by the time I got back in there, we were behind by nine.

"I think we took a big step forward, but like Coach [Pete] Gillen told us, there's no such thing as moral victories. We've got to play every game like we did tonight and, if we did, we'd have a lot more wins."


 

No miracle here
Blue Devils pull away from Cavs
By Dave Johnson
Daily Press
Published February 12, 2004

DURHAM, N.C. -- Miracles do happen. The 1980 U.S. hockey team knocked off the mighty Soviets, and Harry Truman stunned at least one newspaper by defeating Thomas Dewey.

So Virginia at least had a chance Wednesday night against the nation's top-ranked team, right? On the road, where the Cavaliers had won only once in the past 17 conference games? In a building where their last victory came in 1995?

Miracles do happen, but not on this night. Virginia, as gritty as it was outclassed, just didn't have enough to avoid a 93-75 loss to Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

"We tried as hard as we could try," Virginia coach Pete Gillen said. "Winston Churchill said do the best where you are with what you've got. I thought tonight we did the best we could. We played as hard as we could."

Missing its best player - Devin Smith's cranky back finally rendered him unable to play - Virginia (12-9, 2-8) never wilted against Duke's all-star talent and Cameron's frenzied atmosphere. After giving up 31 points in the opening 10 minutes, the Cavs were within nine at the break. And when Derrick Byars knocked down a 3-pointer with 13:17 left in the game, Duke's lead had been trimmed to 57-54.

But starting with a J.J. Redick drive, the Blue Devils answered with a 6-0 run. Starter Jason Clark had fouled out at 17:22; Byars followed almost six minutes later. The Cavs simply ran out of steam, along with bodies.

"I thought they played with a lot of heart," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "They're tough to defend."

Virginia finished with the most points Duke (21-1, 10-0) has yielded in regulation conference game this season. Elton Brown, who has been up and down lately, had 24 points in a grueling battle with Duke's Shelden Williams. Five of his eight rebounds were on the offensive end, and three he converted into six points.

Freshman J.R. Reynolds added a career-best 16 points, 11 coming in the first half. Byars had eight, six coming on the first 3-pointers he had hit since Jan. 5. Still, U.Va. could have used Smith, who has battled a herniated disc all season.

"If he's in there," Brown said, "that would be an easy 15, 16 points right there."

Though Gillen was pleased with the effort, it also must be a little frustrating. If the Cavs can go toe-to-toe with the nation's No. 1 team in maybe the toughest venue in America, why can't they muster that kind of energy against everybody else?

"I thought we played harder tonight than we did in Charlottesville against Duke," Gillen said. "We have to play this hard, play together, and hopefully execute a little better. We've got 25 percent of our games left. We've got at least seven games left. And hopefully we can play hard, try to build on that and see what happens."
 

Devils get Cavs' best shot
By FRANK DASCENZO : The Herald-Sun
fdascenzo@heraldsun.com
Feb 11, 2004 : 11:46 pm ET

For a while there it was so entertaining that you hated to see the drama end. Virginia, with only two ACC wins, was rattling in baskets and running the Cameron Indoor Stadium court with no fear Wednesday night.

No, no. Never mind that theory you're thinking about -- that Duke was overlooking the Cavaliers and ahead to Sunday night's showdown with N.C. State in Raleigh. In the usually dramatic world of the ACC, there's that habit of wanting to fast-forward things. Forget it. Virginia came to play and the Blue Devils knew it afterward.

The unranked Cavaliers might have only 12 wins, and are tied for eighth place in the ACC, but you'd never have known it because with 13:17 to go they trailed No. 1 Duke by three points. But in the real world, in the world of that balanced arsenal Duke brings to every game, things can happen in a hurry. Make that in a drastic hurry, if you're a Cavaliers fan.

Quickly, it happened. Luol Deng gets a putback . . . Deng rebounds a missed UVa shot, gives the outlet to Chris Duhon, who goes the length of the court for a basket. Now Virginia's deficit is nine points. What do you say? What do you do? Pete Gillen, the Virginia coach sweating at the neck of his mock sweater, was impressed just like most college coaches who face the Devils.

It was a game closer than you'd think. Closer and harder, too. Blue Devils hit the deck. Deng first, Shelden Williams, Sean Dockery. They fell but the Duke team didn't.

The problem with playing Duke, especially in Cameron, is that you might play the Devils a close game but they usually find a way to stave off your best effort. Duke beat the Cavaliers 93-75. That was no surprise.

"This proves how good the conference is," J.J. Redick said. "There's really not an off night in the conference. We didn't come out well and execute. In the first half we weren't getting into our sets or running them with precision. We were kind of going through the motions."

Playing Duke tough is one thing. Beating the Blue Devils is something else. Not that it can't, or won't, happen but Deng's abilities and Duhon's leadership, when it most mattered, proved the difference. With four minutes left, Duhon swished a 3-pointer for an 85-68 lead and the Cavaliers were, for all practical purposes, out of fuel.

Give Gillen credit for his realistic approach. He knew the odds were long, too long actually. But he also knew his team played as hard as it could for as long as it could.

"We did the best we could," Gillen said. "We played a great team. If you make a mistake against Duke, they will make you pay."

Redick insisted that Duke isn't about turning on the switch when it's needed. "We can't be a great team if we expect to just flip the switch on and off," Redick said. "Chris Duhon made a big play and cushioned our lead. But it was a tough performance by Luol in the second half. He played with a lot of heart. We feel right now we're a little banged up and it's on us to play hard every game."

The longer Redick talked, the more his listeners wanted to know about the invasion into Raleigh.

"It's going to be a huge game," Redick said. "We lost there last year, it's a tough place to play. It gets loud and they've gotten a lot better since the last time we played them. I always wanted to play for Duke. You either love Duke or your hate Duke. The reason is we're one of the best programs. I knew what was in store for me, I'm not stupid."

Virginia shot 50 percent in the second half. That's good. But the Devils shot 56.7 percent, ended with five players scoring in double figures and Shavlik Randolph, coming in off the bench, had eight points, five rebounds, two assists and two blocks in 23 minutes.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, before praising his next opponent, N.C. State's Herb Sendek and his second-place-in-the-ACC Wolfpack, concluded the Blue Devils responded to Virginia's pressure.

"Luol, Shelden and Chris and Redick played very smart," Krzyzewski said.

Not only have the Blue Devils remained No. 1 in the national polls, they've dominated along the way to their 21-1 overall and 10-0 ACC record, winning games by average of 20.5 points. There's no secret, there's no magic formula. But there is execution and it's at both ends of the floor.

-- Defense: The word may as well have accompanied Mike Krzyzewski from West Point to Durham. Duke is forcing an average of 18.2 turnovers per game. The 2001 NCAA championship team forced 19.3 per game and the back-to-back NCAA title teams of 1991 and 1992 forced an average of 20 and 17.8 per game. Consider that before Virginia took the Cameron Indoor floor on Wednesday night, Duke's opponents were shooting .383 from the floor, the Devils had forced 305 turnovers, collected 167 steals and blocked 118 shots in their last 17 games.

-- Offense: Four Blue Devils were averaging double-figure scoring before Wednesday and Chris Duhon, fifth in scoring with a 9.7 points-per-game average, had dealt a team-high 143 assists. Leading scorer J.J. Redick (16.5) had made 62 3-pointers, Daniel Ewing 38. In the 82-74 victory at Georgia Tech on Jan. 31 -- a game some thought Duke would lose -- five Devils scored in double figures and Duhon had nine assists and three turnovers.

-- Old and New: In Duhon, the Blue Devils have senior leadership at the point. He made the game-winning drive and basket at UNC. But against Florida State on Jan. 29 he made a 3-pointer for a five-point lead in a 56-49 win. In freshman Luol Deng, the Devils not only have a second-leading scorer (14.3) but a consistent one too. Going into the game with Virginia, Deng had scored in double figures 17 of 21 games. Perhaps because of Duhon's game-winning shot, and the overtime on a 9 p.m. game at UNC, Deng's 12 rebounds seemed to go unnoticed.

 

U.Va. puts up fight, falls
Top-ranked Blue Devils display too much talent for gritty Cavs to overcome in road setback
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 12, 2004

DURHAM, N.C. - Virginia's effort last night ranked among its finest of the season. Coach Pete Gillen's top all-around player, Devin Smith, didn't suit up, yet the Cavaliers dis- played more toughness and grit than they had in weeks.

"I'm very proud of my team," Gillen said. "I thought they tried as hard as they could try."

U.Va. got 24 points from junior center Elton Brown and a career-high 16 from freshman guard J.R. Reynolds. Against the nation's top-ranked team, that wasn't nearly enough to move Virginia out of the ACC cellar.

Duke, whose lead was trimmed to three points seven minutes into the second half, regrouped in a manner befitting the conference's premier program. The Blue Devils had too much experience and too much talent for the short-handed Cavaliers and pulled away for a 93-75 victory before 9,314 at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

"Virginia was playing real well, and they put us in a tough position," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "And we responded, which was nice."

Duke sophomore J.J. Redick, who like Reynolds is a sharpshooter from Roanoke, Va., hit four 3-pointers and all seven of his free throws. Redick finished with a game-high 25 points and contributed perhaps the game's biggest play.

After Virginia sophomore Derrick Byars' trey made it 57-54 with 13:17 remaining, Redick converted a layup that counted even though the Cave Spring High graduate was called for a charge on the play.

"That was a big, big play in the game," said Brown, who hurt his hip when he took the charge and briefly had to go to the U.Va. bench.

The Devils stretched their advantage to 63-54 before U.Va. scored again. By the 8:15 mark, Duke's lead was 15.

"We hung in there but just had a couple of mistakes," Gillen said. "Any time you make a mistake against Duke, they make you pay."

Reynolds, who's emerging as one of Virginia's most valuable players, made a career-best four 3-pointers and scored in double figures for the fifth time in his past six games.

"He made every big basket to keep us in the hunt," Gillen said. "I thought he was spectacular."

Brown had several lapses - he turned the ball over four times - but showed off an array of low-post moves and grabbed eight rebounds.

"When Elton Brown plays like that," Krzyzewski said, "he's as good a big guy as there is in the league."

The victory was the 18th consecutive for Duke (10-0, 21-1). The Cavaliers (2-8, 12-9) have dropped five in a row since beating Clemson at University Hall last month. U.Va. took what Brown called a "big-time step forward" but still lost for the 17th time in its past 18 ACC road games.

"We gave it our best," Gillen said. "It wasn't good enough - they're certainly a better team - but we played as hard as we can play."

Smith, a junior forward who has a herniated disk in his back, watched in warmups from the bench. He'd scored a team-high 19 points against the Blue Devils last month at University Hall, and his absence didn't bode well for the Cavaliers.

The challenge facing them grew more daunting in the second half. Junior forward Jason Clark, whose coaches didn't realize he'd picked up his fourth personal with 18:15 left, fouled out 43 seconds later. Byars, whose two 3-pointers were his most since Dec. 31, collected his fourth and fifth fouls in a three-second span and sat down for good with 11:38 left.

Gillen was thus forced to surround his remaining veterans - Brown and senior guard Todd Billet - with freshmen, including point guard T.J. Bannister, who had six assists, five points, four turnovers, two rebounds and one steal in his first start.

"I thought he did a respectable job," Gillen said.

Bannister made only 1 of 6 shots from the floor, though, and a couple of his misses came at critical times for Virginia. "Against Duke, you can't miss those shots," Bannister said.

 

What matters: A win's a win; a loss is a loss
JOHN MARKON
POINT OF VIEW: Feb 12, 2004

DURHAM, N.C. What does it all mean?

Life? Look elsewhere. A basketball game played between Virginia and Duke last night? We're still not so sure.

About the only thing that went according to form was the final score. No.1-ranked Duke, a 21-point favorite, led by 22 in the final minute and won 93-75. There was no "shock the world" upset and no end to the Blue Devils' 39-game home-court winning streak.

But no one expected Virginia, an Atlantic Coast Conference bottom-feeder, to be only three points behind (57-54) with seven minutes elapsed in the second half. The Cavaliers, after all, were behind by nine points (12-3) with less than three minutes elapsed in the first half.

The Cavs, squirming for weeks amid allegations they were the Tin Men of the ACC, could (and did) walk off the court at Cameron Indoor Stadium citing the game as a testimonial to their heart and desire.

"People who say we don't play hard," insisted U.Va. center Elton Brown, "I don't know what team they're watching. This team has great heart."

Only five minutes earlier, coach Pete Gillen was telling a press room crowd that Virginia (12-9) could have won several additional games if the Cavs had played with the verve and snap they showed last night.

Even though it seemed to invalidate his earlier comment about "great heart," Brown immediately agreed.

Any game featuring the unexpected would, almost by necessity, have featured a large role for Brown, U.Va.'s always-enigmatic 6-9 junior. Last night, Brown went over, under and around the Blue Devils' outstanding Shelden Williams for 24 points and eight rebounds.

"I gotta tell you," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who would seem to qualify as an astute basketball analyst, "he [Brown] was really, really good."

Brown had been good for only five points and three rebounds in Virginia's last outing, a 16-point home-court loss to North Carolina State.

What no one could have expected was the ease in which Virginia's two freshman guards, T.J. Bannister and J.R. Reynolds, whipped passes inside to Brown in the low post. Bannister (6 assists) was making his first career start. Where was the much-celebrated Duke man-to-man defense?

"Not a great night for the perimeter 'D,'" admitted senior guard Chris Duhon. "Tapes of this one may not be . . . ah . . . too much fun."

According to Krzyzewski, his players weren't talking too each other enough, which made sense since "Coach K" has traditionally insisted "This game's always about relationships."

If Krzyzewski wants to renew his relationship with the national championship, he'll need better, more energetic defense than he saw last night. He was oddly placid on the bench through the game, perhaps the Cavs were teaching his guys some lessons they hadn't been absorbing in practice.

Some of Virginia's successes, however, should rightfully be credited to the Cavaliers. Reynolds, in particular, continued to mark himself as a coming star by scoring 16 points without a turnover.

As Krzyzewski mentioned, the Blue Devils reached several "breaking points" with 12- and 14-point leads only to have Reynolds step up and score from behind the arc.

"By the time J.R. leaves school," insisted Brown, "he'll be one of the all-time greats ever to play at Virginia."

Reynolds' focus was more on Saturday's home game with Georgia Tech. As much as several of the Cavaliers seemed to want to claim that a decent outing against a No.1-ranked opponent could be a springboard to a better, brighter February, most of them seemed to realize it was all talk until Virginia, now 2-8 in the ACC, starts beating some people.

Just as any talk about Duke "vulnerability" ought to be put on hold until the Devils, undefeated since a Nov. 29 loss to Purdue in Alaska, actually lose another game.