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LAHAINA, Hawaii – When the thriller ended Wednesday and the action was stopped and the witnesses tried to calculate the details of the match they had just watched, a question remained to the Following the victory of Gonzaga No. 3 89-87 on the first. Duc in the title game Maui Invitational.
Can we do it again?
The # 3 Gonzaga surprised Duke # 1 at the Maui Invitational on Wednesday. "The experience played a big role in this process," said Zach Norvell Jr.
The Bulldogs surpassed Kansas in the standings after suffering Duke's first loss.
How did the top prospects perform in the biggest game of the season so far?
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Can we remove the teams from the beaches of Maui and ask their families two hours of their time to get it back on Thanksgiving day? And if it's too much to ask the gracious organizers of this event, should we put this revenge in a slot at the Final Four in Minneapolis in five months?
Because every element of Wednesday's match was like a national championship game. As the national title game.
November is a liar. Some teams that win the early win award improve over the course of the season. For others, these victories become the reference for their problems. And a meeting at the end of November is rarely an accurate indicator of the true position of a team. Gonzaga, who will face Tennessee and North Carolina before the start of the West Coast conference, will likely be in first place in the polls next week. But Duke could find this place in the months to come.
We are sure, however, that we have just watched two of the most talented teams in the United States, and a rematch at the US Bank Stadium in April is a good wait after Wednesday's game, the best game of the season 2018-19 to date.
"It was a fantastic match and you have to like this tournament," said Gonzaga coach Mark Few. "I love this place, I love Maui, and it has been a great experience for our team and our fans as well as everyone involved in our program.But what a basketball game." Duke is all that we thought they were, and probably even a little bit more, they did not stop smoking, they are really talented people, strong, hard to stop and they made a hell of a race. "
On Monday, the basketball court at the Lahaina Civic Center was visibly slippery. Dave Odom, longtime president of Maui Invite, seemed frustrated with the problem. One of the air conditioners in the building had malfunctioned and when warm air was leaking into the building whenever someone opened the door, the land turned into a sauna. filled with wetlands.
Odom asked his staff to work late Monday night to solve the problem and the floor was much better Tuesday. The air conditioning had been repaired. The boys and girls at the ball were relentless to clean the places whenever someone slipped. Problem solved.
At Wednesday's Gonzaga-Duke match, the floor was slippery again. Dozens of spectators had lined the walls and blocked the exits of the building, which overflowed with people.
Did they have tickets? Were they employees? VIPs? This is not clear, but additional bodies that had infiltrated the premises to witness the Battle of Duke and Gonzaga had reintroduced the dampness that reigned on the floors on Monday.
It was an appropriate and frenetic scene for a game that represented every element of the beauty of college basketball.
Traditionalists who believe that the culture of "one and done" has corrupted the game could rejoice a Gonzaga team that has started three upper classes and two sophomores. And the four freshmen from Duke were already at the center of a national debate about whether the Blue Devils could compete with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The youth factor in the experiment was, however, secondary to the amount of talent on the ground. Zion Williamson, Cam Reddish and RJ Barrett brought several NBA leaders to Maui this week. Rui Hachimura, a lottery pick who scored 20 points in the Maui Invite title game, also increased his stock. Tre Jones, perhaps an afterthought, before her superb effort in the title match, "has grown on me," said a scout in the NBA.
1:07
With 89-87 in the last minute against Gonzaga, Duke players can not convert to 7 attempts, including RJ Barrett's layup attempt at the last second.
Duke's previous top-10 finishes – a 34-point win against Kentucky in the Champions Classic and a six-point win against Auburn on Tuesday in Maui – were not competitive. Many expected the same result against Gonzaga. Instead, the Blue Devils faced their toughest game of the season.
We had little against Mike Krzyzewski, two of the greatest coaches in the history of college basketball. We had a pair of recognizable marks with legitimate listings.
Gonzaga had a double-digit lead in the second half. Hachimura seemed to be a pro throughout the match. Brandon Clarke had big blocks and dunks. Josh Perkins remained calm and directed the show even when it appeared that it could collapse. Barrett, Williamson and Jones – "He plays like he's 30," said Few after match – refused to yield.
And then, when Duke had narrowed the gap and turned a rash into a more entertaining finish of the year, there had been a trashy speech. Well, a smirk, really.
After the match, Hachimura said he wanted to keep Barrett, who had thrown himself on it in the second half, late. You could see him smile when he had had the opportunity at the last minute. Hachimura, in the middle of a nationally televised party, smiled as Barrett walked toward him.
"I think he's plugged me in and that he was trying to play against me, and I thought to myself:" OK, let's do it, "he said. Hachimura said after the match. "We are the best team in the country and I am also the best player and I have to keep it."
And that's another reason we hope to see that again.
Gonzaga, who won the match without Killian Tillie, is the best team at the moment. Both teams could, however, make monumental progress by April.
At the end of November, Gonzaga and Duke did not settle anything. They have just prepared spectators who have suspended their preparations to watch the game on television and spectators who have resisted the lure of the Maui beaches to cram a picturesque building in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
"[Few has done] Krzyzewski did a great job with his program. It's an honor to play against him and his fans, and it's a great match for college basketball today. The fan base is there, the effort and two outstanding programs. It was really a good basketball today. "
Gonzaga and Duke organized a big match in Maui on Wednesday.
And if we are lucky, it was not their last encounter of the season.
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