The biggest play of the game was RJ's terrible lob pass to Zion up 9. A descent pass and Zion catches, scores, we go up 11. Instead, its a turnover and zion goes back to try and get it picking up his 2nd foul and leaving game. MSU see's zion out, gains confidence and proceeds to go on a 13-0 run. Duke could have responded better, but i firmly believe, if RJ wasn't lazy passing there, duke goes on to a relatively easy 10+ point win. Duke was so much better than MSU, but duke kept pressing and turning it over with it being a close game. MSU had 13 more shots than Duke. Can't do that.
That's why i'm having stomach pain knowing how much better we are than MSU. Duke just wan't mentally ready to execute like you need to in a big game. Blame players, coaches, to me all of the above. MSU played hard and smart but they didn't have great athletes or players that were putting duke in tough situations, duke was putting themselves in tough situations by too much ISO. Tre needed to attack their D from the top, and he didn't do that at all. Our offense all game was to Rj on the wing with a high ball screen, we seriously ran that 50 times, and RJ isn't one to break down a defense, he doesn't get by his defender, he can score through his defender and contact.
Duke was much more talented than Kansas last year and that hurt, we were light years more talented than MSU this year. Bad bad trend, only constant is a few players that didn't have a huge impact in either game (other than Javin vs MSU) and K/coaches. I've said it a bunch now. Zion masked a lot. Without Zion this team would have been on the bubble, I firmly believe that. I also think without Zion the K retiring talks would have been going on big time all year. Think about this, Duke should have lost at home to Wake Forest. Again, at home vs wake forest. Cam Scored 6 points on 9 shots against that awful D at home. Almost went 1-4 without Zion.