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Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 2545654, member: 837"] Enjoyed the post. My general feeling is it is going to be an absolutely colossal hill to climb. The one thing I kept thinking prior to MSU -- which was a pretty major upset -- was that MSU would be fine playing an ugly game which would play into our hands. Wasn't suprised it was close. Pretty surprised we closed it out but wasn't surprised that the game itself was ugly and close. I don't get that feel with Duke. My fears are these: 1. The talent is better than MSU. Bagley and Carter aren't just great athletes, they are basketball players. Allen is a pr!ck, but he's dangerous. Duval and Trent can play. There's just more there than MSU and I fear we'll have to score at a better rate to stay in this game. 2. K with six days to prepare. We can hate the dude but he's a phenomenal coach and six days is a loooonnnngggg time. 3. Really talented teams coming together at the right time is a tough thing to deal with as an opponent. UK did it a couple years ago and has a good shot at doing it again this year. Duke is doing it right now. There's a decent chance that we could play really well and still lose by 8-10. Didn't feel that way about MSU even though I didn't think we were going to win. What I think works in our favor are the points you mention as well as the following two: 1. We're so bad offensively that I almost would think Duke wishes it was playing man. Duke playing a zone may give us fits like it did in the first matchup, but the zone isn't always quite as effective against bad offensive teams b/c it could potentially lead to more open looks (albeit from deep or the FT line) than we've gotten in our last few weeks. 2. This team will play extremely hard and that tends to be a pain in the a$$ for almost every opponent. To me that's the x factor. The longer we keep it close, the more this becomes an issue b/c we're going to fighting for our lives like we have been most of the season. Can Duke match that intensity down the stretch? Probably but it would be hard. This team fought it's keyster off even while getting blown out by UNC in the ACC tourney. You just don't see a ton of that. [/QUOTE]

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