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The 2 best teams were on the same court Friday … too bad we have to wait to see Duke and Florida play each other
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RALEIGH, N.C. – The 2 best teams in college basketball played on the same court Friday. And they’ll be back at Raleigh’s Lenovo Center to do it again on Sunday.
Unfortunately, Duke and Florida aren’t playing a best-of-3 series. In fact, they didn’t play one another at all.
That will have to wait another 3 weeks until they see each other again in San Antonio.
If they both get that far.
But judging from the performances the Blue Devils and Gators put together in their back-to-back NCAA Tournament opening victories, it’s hard to imagine them not being on a collision course for an eventual national championship showdown.
It’s not that they barely broke a sweat in disposing of overmatched opponents. That’s what No. 1 regional seeds are supposed to do. It’s the way they did it that made the loudest statement.
There were no early deficits to overcome. No unnecessary drama. Just businesslike dominance from both teams.
Duke, the top seed in the NCAA’s East Region, eased fears about the health of star Cooper Flagg with a 93-49 beatdown of Mount St. Mary’s. Florida had a few more lapses than the Blue Devils when it took the court as the top dog in the West. But it still managed to stay focused long enough to put an equally lopsided 95-69 hurting on Norfolk State.
Both advanced to second-round games in Raleigh on Sunday. But if this was the starting point for deep Tournament runs, the bar has already been set about as high as Florida’s 7-9 redshirt Olivier Rioux.
“I just thought that these guys were incredibly mature without necessarily even playing in the NCAA Tournament besides Tyrese (Proctor) and Mason (Gillis),” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said of his young team. “I’m proud of the performance. We have to move on very quickly, But it’s really good to get our feet wet and understand what the Tournament is all about. …
“It feels different. It just does. So to experience that and to give really good effort and to have that killer instinct to come out, I think that’s the biggest thing I took away.”
Maybe it was for Scheyer. But for the rest of us, Duke getting off to a 18-4 headstart and resisting the urge to take its foot off the accelerator was a distant second to the health and contribution of the presumptive national Player of the Year.
For all the pregame assertions that Flagg was fully recovered from the ankle sprain he suffered during last week’s ACC Tournament – both from the player himself and his coach – questions remained until he showed it on the court.
It took less than 2 minutes for that to happen. Running the floor on a fastbreak with his typical hustle, Flagg took a pass from Proctor, went strong to the rim and scored as he was knocked to the floor. Even more encouraging was the fact that he got right up and showed no signs of distress.
“The last time he fell it wasn’t good news,” teammate Kon Knueppel said. “It was good to see him run back on defense.”
Flagg finished with 14 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocked shots in 22 minutes before turning things over to the bench and walkons. It was part of an efficient effort that saw the Blue Devils shoot 50% from the floor and post a program-best 21-to-2 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Florida was just as impressive over the first 15 minutes of its game against Norfolk State. With the duo of Walter Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martin combining for 6 3-pointers and 27 points, the Gators jumped out to a 53-21 advantage.
But unlike Duke, the Gators began going for style points instead of being satisfied with just scoring more points.
“We kept looking at the scoreboard,” Martin said afterward. “We can’t do that at this level. We can’t give (any) team (any) hope. We’ve just got to be better going forward.”
The 16-seeded Spartans took advantage of that lapse in concentration to score the final 11 points of the half, then play even with Florida for a good portion of the second half before the Gators regained their composure and re-established control.
Even though the Gators’ lead never dipped below 20 and they were never in danger, the letdown could potentially be a warning sign as they advance in the tournament and level up in competition.
Or, as coach Todd Golden suggested, it could just as easily be a teaching moment that could give his team an even better chance of accomplishing its national championship goal.
Especially if it ends up facing that other talented top seed it shared a court with on Friday.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
