1. FSU won 76-73 at Cameron Indoor Stadium. This broke Duke’s 45 game home winning streak (and a 64 game streak vs unranked teams). The last time Duke lost at home was nearly three years ago, when they lost to UNC. The last time Duke lost at home to an unranked team was five years ago, against Florida State. The score then was 68-67 and Duke had two chances to win it at the end – Greg Paulus missed a layup with five seconds left but Duke retained possession on a held ball call with the arrow in their favor. Then Josh McRoberts missed a jumper at the buzzer. This was the night that J.J. Redick’s jersey was retired at halftime.
2. Michael Snaer made 2 of 3 three-pointers, the 2nd of which will be replayed over and over on sports channels and rightfully so. But the first was a buzzer beater as well. At the end of the half Deividas Dulkys pushed the ball toward the left wing as he was being tackled by Duke’s Tyler Thornton. The refs chose to ignore the foul and the ball ended up in Michael Snaer’s hands. He chucked up a shot which banked in as the buzzer sounded. That cut the Blue Devils lead to six heading into halftime. Snaer entered the game a 34% shooter from beyond the arc.
3. FSU converted 7-14 (50%) from beyond the arc. This was the first game all season in which the Noles made 50% or more. In fact, it was the 2nd game in two seasons where the Noles did this. Xavier Gibson (17%) and Okaro White (24%) both made their only attempt, and Deividas Dulkys made 2-4. In the past three games Dulkys is now 12-17 (70.1%) raising his season average from 32.1% to 41.1%.
4. Duke managed 14 offensive rebounds, 10 of them in the first half. Announcers Mike Patrick and Len Elmore continuously referred to their “toughness meter” where, for the game’s first 35 minutes, they awarded an overwhelming edge to Duke, mostly due to their rebound margin. What they failed to mention is that 14 offensive boards off 38 missed shots (37%) was right in line with their season average (35%), and that FSU is a notoriously poor defensive rebounding team (219th nationally) because of the way they commit secondary defenders to attack shots (thus leaving rebound lanes open). Stetson and UNC-Greensboro did a “tougher” job rebounding against FSU.
5. Duke attempted 17 free throws. FSU attempted 20. This is only the 3rd time in 19 games that an opponent has attempted more FTs than Duke. Duke’s FT rate is 4th in the nation, primarily due to Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly who are both top-50 nationally. Plumlee and Kelly have the two highest FT rates in the ACC. The difference is that Plumlee converts 44% of his FTs whereas Kelly makes 81%. But tonight Plumlee was 2-3, while Kelly was 2-4. Kelly missed a free throw with :22 seconds left that would have tied the game.
