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Duke Beats Michigan 71-56 to Win 2K Sports Classic Title
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1 CommentThere was no upset tonight.
Michigan did its best to hang around with Duke for the first half, but the Blue Devils ultimately pulled away and won 71-56. There’s not a whole lot to say about this game other than that Michigan just didn’t have it tonight. Credit goes to Duke for playing tough defense, as they forced Michigan into taking plenty of bad shots. To make things worse, most of the open shots Michigan had didn’t fall, which was a stark contrast from the UCLA game.
One of the positive things to take away from this game is that Michigan did hang around with Duke for a while. It wasn’t a blowout, and there were even times when the lead was almost cut down to single digits late in the game. Another positive is the play of Manny Harris. He scored 25 points and did a good job of driving to the basket. Even when he didn’t have open looks, Harris was able to score or draw fouls by simply forcing his way to the basket.
What will really be interesting is to see how Michigan and Duke play when they meet two weeks from tomorrow. Duke had little trouble with the 1-3-1, unlike most teams that aren’t familiar with Michigan, so I will be interested in seeing what adjustments are made from tonight’s game to the game in a couple weeks. If Michigan can shoot better than they did tonight, then they will have a shot at pulling off the upset.
In case you were wondering, UCLA beat Southern Illinois 77-60 to take third-place in the 2K Sports Classic. The Bruins looked much better than they did against Michigan, so hopefully that says more about Michigan than it does UCLA.
On an unrelated note, Michigan lost in hockey to Miami (Ohio) by a score of 2-0. Michigan plays at Miami again tomorrow night, so here’s to hoping they continue their recent trend of losing on Friday and winning on Saturday.
The reason why Duke didn’t have trouble with the 1-3-1 zone was because coach k, had his team practice specifically to try to beat it. If you have the faster athletes, then chances are you’ll have the advantage in that match up.
Michigan needs to work on their shooting and shot selection. Michigan would have had a better chance this game if their shooting was a little better. Unless that changes, any future match up with Duke will have similar results.