Watch Out For Angry Duke
The Duke Blue Devils don’t lose often in the regular season, but watch out when they do.
Duke (19-3) is 5-1 straight-up coming off a regular season loss over the last two years and 4-1 ATS. After their first loss this year against Michigan, Duke beat UNC Ashville by 43 points. After their loss at Wake Forest 10 days ago, they stormed back by beating Virginia by 25 points, 79-54.
The Blue Devils will be coming off another defeat when they host the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday afternoon at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Catch the odds for this game at Sportsbook.com and remember about our $20.00 Free Play for New Mobile bettors.
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Duke’s latest defeat came at the hands of the Clemson Tigers. And while it wasn’t shocking that they lost a game they were favored by just four points, no one could have predicted the 74-47 shellacking.
Clemson turned up their full-court press in a big way and they never looked back after taking a 33-21 halftime lead. Duke had 16 turnovers in the game, shot less than 31% from the field and didn’t even look like they deserved to be on the same court.
This was the worst loss for the Dukies since the 1990 championship game to UNLV. Coach Kryzyzewski’s squad learned from that title loss and won the championship the next two years.
And while ‘Coach K’ looks like a middle aged choir boy with that haircut, he’s as intense as any coach in the country and he will have his team fired up to play the ‘Canes, especially at home.
Miami (15-7) is at the other end of the spectrum from Duke, coming off their best game of the year, a 79-52 over 7th ranked Wake Forest. The Hurricanes showed how potent they can be when they shoot well, as they were 49% from the floor and 11-24 (45.8%) from three-point land.
Guard Jack McClinton led the way with 32 points and he is going to need another monster game for them to win or even cover Saturday. The Hurricanes used a zone defense to control Wake Forest but that’s not likely to work against Duke as they can knock down three-pointers if left open.
What Duke is going to do defensively is try to limit McClinton and force somebody else to beat them. Forward Dwayne Collins is the only other player to average double digits in scoring (11.7) and Duke leads the ACC in scoring defense at 60.4 PPG, a good three points better than their closest competitor.
Miami is just 4-5 straight-up in the ACC this year and just 3-5-1 ATS and they must bring their ‘A’ game on Saturday because you know they’ll get it from angry Duke.
