Too hot to handle

The red-hot University of Maryland men’s basketball team won its sixth straight game tonight, defeating Duke (at Duke) 85-77. Two staight wins against the Blue Devils? Back-to-back wins over Carolina and Duke? It doesn’t get much better than that.
Unfortunately, I missed most of the game because of work, and ESPN experienced technical difficulties during the home stretch. But the box score tells the story. We outrebounded and outshot the Dukies. In fact, we shot 52 percent on Duke’s home floor, before the Cameron crazies. I assume the high percentage was the result, in part, of our 25 assists, 12 of them dished out by freshman Greivis Vasquez. Coach K has got to be hating his team’s defense tonight.
Vasquez nearly had a triple double in his first game at Cameron (13 points, 9 rebounds, and the 12 assists). The suddenly alive Mike Jones scored a game-high 25 points, including 4 for 5 shooting from three point land, and team MVP D.J. Stawberry contribued 17 points and his usual stellar defense.
If Maryland can win a few games in the ACC tournament, we may get a good enough seed in the NCAAs to make some noise. But the Terps have already made my year.
UPDATE: Average points by Duke opponents this year = 59; points by Maryland last night = 85. Average field goal percentage by Duke opponents = 40.9; Maryland’s percentage last night = 52.4. Average three point shooting percentage by Duke opponents = 29.7; Maryland’s percentage last night = 53.8.

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