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Duke badgers its way to NCAA title #5
TweetTHE officiating may have left a little to be desired but in the end, two lates buckets by Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones' big 3-pointer allowed Duke University to escape Wisconsin and claim its fifth NCAA crown 68-63 today.
If you've recently watched the ESPN 30 For 30 doco "I Hate Christian Laettner", you were also probably barracking for the Badgers but I only jumped on Wisconsin as it took out Kentucky in their semi final.
Over the Final's final 13 minutes, Duke outscored the Badgers by 14 to make it three-from-three for the Blue Devils in NCAA title deciders played in Indianapolis.
The expected No.1 NBA draft selection this year, Okafor, struggled to match Wisconsin's star centre Frank Kaminsky - and yeah, he reminds me at times of Paul Rogers too.
But Okafor was there to be counted when it mattered.
Consecutive baskets over Kaminsky, book-ended by Jones' 3-pointers, helped turn a nine-point deficit into an eight-point lead 1:22 out.
Jones led the Blue Devils with 23 points, Okafor with 10.
“My teammates and the coaching staff, they’ve given me confidence,” Jones said.
“They believed in me and trusted in me all year. There wasn’t a moment they doubted me.”
Duke (and USA) coach Mike Krzyzewski now has five national championships - 1991, 1992, 2001, 2010 and 2015 - ranking second all-time to John Wooden.
The doyen of college coaching won 10 NCAA titles with UCLA.
Locked 31-all at halftime, Wisconsin led 48-39 on Kaminsky's layup with 13:23 left.
Kaminsky finished with 21 points and 12 boards, Nigel Hayes and Sam Dekker adding 13 points apiece.
Wisconsin was chasing its first NCAA title since 1941.
“Shots just weren’t falling, and they were getting to the line, and when the tide changes like that, it’s kind of hard to get back in the flow,” Dekker said.
The officiating? The Badgers were whistled for only two fouls in the first half, but the count in the second half was Badgers 13, Blue Devils six. Duke shot 20 free throws to Wisconsin’s 10.
That said, there won't be an asterisk next to Duke's title explaining that.
Online
