Two games. Four days. After all the struggles Duke has been experiencing lately, the season is not over. Most fans seem like they want to crawl in a hole and just get it over with. But Duke must continue to play, and play well if they want to turn this season around.
The first of the must wins, comes tonight at MSG. St John’s hasn’t been the team they once were in a long time. However, Duke can’t chalk this up to a W before they walk on the floor. The team will have to play lights out to get back some much needed confidence. Confidence hasn’t been around for a long time with this team. And sometimes that is all you need to carry yourself to bigger things. A win tonight would help ease the pain for the entire Duke nation, and put the focus back on winning basketball.
The end of this week features Wake Forest coming to Durham, in a very interesting contest. Everyone remembers how Wake won the game in Winston-Salem, and both teams are hanging on to the second spot in the ACC. This won’t be an easy game by any stretch, and the only advantage is being at home.
Two games, that could go a long way in deciding what Duke does from here on out. A win tonight and then focus on the battle just a few short days away. At this point, with the way they are playing it is best to focus on a game by game basis. Don’t worry about the ACC, your seed, or championships. Just focus on playing good quality basketball and the rest will work itself out.
I think you are right about Duke’s only advantage vs Wake is being at home, but that has been a pretty big advantage this year with 14 wins and 1 loss. Zoubek needs to do something on the inside though against a tall Wake team.