The Duke Blue Devils may have discovered themselves on the mistaken facet of a bracket-buster in Spherical 1 of the 2026 NCAA Match.
Ranked because the No. 1 total seed within the event, Duke trailed No. 16 seed Sienna by as many as 13 factors. The Blue Devils went into halftime down 11.
At that time, that they had made their mark for being the primary No. 1 seed in NCAA Match historical past to path a No. 16 seed by 10 factors or extra at halftime.
It did not look good, however Duke ended up prevailing, 71-65, because of 22 factors from Cameron Boozer and 19 from his brother, Cayden Boozer. The Blue Devils additionally went on a 39-22 run within the second half.
Duke escaped, and at occasions it appeared regarding, however head coach Jon Scheyer revealed after the sport that he isn’t nervous in regards to the shut contest.
That is simply how it’s in March Insanity.
“It’s not regarding from the standpoint that, sadly, that is the character of the event,” Scheyer mentioned, according to Barkley Traux of On3. “Look, I want it may simply be clean crusing. These guys, despite the fact that we have now returners from final 12 months’s crew, we’re all in several spots.
“You possibly can face a crew like Siena. They’re extremely able to play. We made some errors early that they made us pay for. Impulsively, you need to win very badly. So you can begin making performs to attempt to get again within the sport which can be most likely uncharacteristic of who we’ve been.”
Duke Blue Devils confirmed off grit in second half vs. Siena
Primarily, what Scheyer is saying is that Duke got here out anticipating to roll over Siena, whereas the Saints got here out able to play. The Blue Devils realized they had been in a battle for his or her lives and began to play a bit stiffly.
They bought out of the funk and ended up transferring on. Based on Scheyer, Duke confirmed toughness and grit, so that you get the sense that he is happier about his crew bouncing again than he’s involved in regards to the sluggish begin.
“The toughness down the stretch, I simply assume that’s what this event is all about,” Scheyer mentioned.
Up subsequent for Duke would be the No. 9-seeded TCU Horned Frogs.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1324276914788316’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
