Sunday, March 28, 2010

Duke to face another zone defense

HOUSTON -- Although the presses haven't even started to run with the stories detailing Duke's 78-71 South Regional final win over Baylor, it's not too early to look ahead to Saturday's NCAA semifinal meeting with West Virginia.

Duke's win over Baylor could be good practice for the game against the Mountaineers. Both teams have confounded opponents with zone defenses this season.

"They play in the Big East, where it's a tough game every single night," said Duke senior center Brian Zoubek. "They're a really tough, scrappy team, and they play hard defense, and it's going to be a tough matchup. We're going to have to match their intensity. We're going to enjoy this, and we're going to get to work on them some time this week."

Having five days to prepare for the zone will provide a different and better scenario for Duke than it had against Baylor. The Blue Devils had just one day to get ready for the Bears' zone, and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski thought the focus on the zone hurt Duke in other areas.

He told his players at halftime that they were doing just fine dealing with the zone, but needed to remember to defend and rebound the way they usually do.

"We need to remember who we are," Krzyzewski said. "And we did that."

Ken Tysiac

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

GO, DUKE!!!!

greatscot123 said...

Hi Ken,
I expected you to give us another well thought out article about why Duke would loose this one, too. After all, West Virginia is another quick and athletic team that should blow past the less talented Blue Devils. I guess that's starting to be embarrassingly redundant.