North Carolina State University Athletics
Wolfpack Looks to end Duke Mastery
1/21/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 21, 2003
By Tony Haynes
Raleigh, N.C.-It would be an understatement to say that NC State has had its share of problems with Duke. Thirteen consecutive games and nearly six years have passed since the Wolfpack experienced a win over Mike Krzyzewski's Blue Devils. But the Pack has plenty of company in a club that is hardly exclusive anymore.
Outside of Maryland, every other team in the ACC has also been force-fed a steady diet of misery when trying to slow down the Duke express. The Blue Devils' regular season record over the last four years against every league team other than Maryland is 55-4. During that same period, the Terps have managed to hold their own by winning four of the nine games that have been played between the two clubs, including an 87-72 triumph Saturday in College Park.
"Certainly Duke has had an amazing run," said NC State head coach Herb Sendek. "They've had great players, lottery pick type of guys streaming through there in recent years."
And even after watching Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy and Carlos Boozer make early exits to the NBA ranks following last season, Duke's roster continues to be well stocked with players who were among the nation's elite prospects coming out of high school. But according to Krzyzewski, the Blue Devils showed their youthful side during last weekend's defeat at Maryland. Now he's curious to see how his team will rebound from its first loss.
"I want to see our reaction after Maryland," said Krzyzewski, who is one victory shy of the 650-win plateau in his career. "Has it done something to our confidence level? We're still a work in progress and so do we get stronger as a result of that loss? Do we learn? Just where are we right now? I think it's good not to be playing at home just because we'll have a truer indication of who we are. We have to do it under hostile fire on enemy turf. We still might play well and get beat, but I hope we respond very favorably to what happened at Maryland."
NC State certainly showed that it could respond last week. Less than 48 hours after suffering an unsightly loss at home to Boston College, the Wolfpack pulled it back together in recording its first road win of the year, a 70-63 victory at Florida State. So instead of staggering into Wednesday's game, the Pack is armed with a renewed sense of confidence as it prepares to square off against one of college basketball's perennial giants.
"We feel like we're at a point now where we need to go in and play hard for 40 minutes," said NC State forward Marcus Melvin, who bagged 21 points at FSU on Saturday. "We haven't beat them since I've been here, so we want to make a change right now. They're a tough to team from one through five. They've had great players that have gone on to play in the NBA---top 10 players and things like that. When you play those guys they play hard all the time, and there's no room for error. If we can limit our mistakes, I think we'll be fine."
Melvin's recovery from a brief shooting slump comes just in time for a week in which the Wolfpack will play home games against its two biggest rivals. North Carolina will visit the RBC Center for a 2:00 p.m. tip-off on Sunday. But first things first. Beating Duke will require NC State's best game of the year. Whether they're running their traditional motion offense, pushing the ball in transition, or taking teams out of a comfort zone with their overplaying man-to-man defense, the Blue Devils are always in full attack mode.
"If you don't run your offense the correct way and you shoot a bad shot, they'll come down and get an 'and one,' things that take the air out of a basketball team," Melvin said.
Senior Dahntay Jones, a defensive specialist who has refined his offensive skills, averages 17.4 points per game to lead the Blue Devils. But Duke's most feared offensive weapon could very well be J.J. Redick, a freshman who's already being compared with some of the greatest shooters in league history. A 16.7 points per game scorer, Redick is hitting 44 percent of his shots from three-point range. His running mate in the backcourt, junior Chris Duhon, is dishing out 7.77 assists per contest, a figure that ranks No. 1 in the ACC.
The ACC's No. 2 scorer right now is NC State's Julius Hodge, who is just a few percentage points behind North Carolina's Rashad McCants with an average of 18.8 points per game.
"He's been outstanding all year," Krzyzewski said of Hodge. "On the court, he scores, he rebounds and he passes. In other words, he does everything and he does it well. He's the key to their team. When he's playing well, they go up a notch."
The Pack may in fact need to take it up a couple of notches to hang with Duke for 40 minutes. Even in its breakout 23-11 campaign a year ago, NC State didn't even come close to the Blue Devils, losing by an average of 28 points in three games. Duke leads the all-time series by a 125-93 margin.
