In an NCAA tournament matchup between the America East champions and nationally-ranked Atlantic Coast Conference champions, big-time basketball trumped upstart mid-major hoops.
Behind a balanced attack of six players in double figures, No. 6 Duke (29-6) overcame 20 points from D.J. Rivera and defeated Binghamton University’s men’s basketball team (23-9), 86-62.
In the Bearcats’ first-ever NCAA appearance, the jersey colors told the story: No. 15 seed Binghamton was green with inexperience while No. 2 seed Duke played like college basketball blue bloods.
“The way they came out, and I emphasized it at the half, they’re going to come out with a lot of fire,” said BU head coach Kevin Broadus. “I told our guys the first five minutes would be critical, and [Duke] did everything I thought they would do.”
The Bearcats cut into that margin with a 6-0 run of their own featuring two Rivera layups and a Reggie Fuller bucket, bringing the score to 62-42. But Binghamton never came closer for the rest of the game despite inspired play, including a backwards fast break dunk by Rivera down the stretch.
Duke built on its lead in the second half by picking apart Binghamton’s pressure defense and finding open layups under the basket.
“They continued to put us in a position where he had to make an extra pass,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “We haven’t been put in that position very often. I think as a result [scoring] was evenly distributed.”
Duke finished with an impressive 21 assists on 25 field goals, and only one Blue Devil took more than nine shots. Jon Scheyer finished with 15 points, Kyle Singler had 10 and 9 rebounds, and Lance Thomas had 14 points on 5 of 5 shooting.
Playing the Blue Devils in Greensboro in a de-facto road game, Binghamton had trouble adjusting to the quality of play — and the officiating — on the first few possessions.
Just three minutes into the game, Cameron Crazies chanted “Six fouls, four points,” alluding to the whopping six fouls, including two on Fuller, that Binghamton had already accumulated. In foul trouble and without their big man, the shell-shocked Bearcats could not recover defensively.
“The early fouls you can’t control,” Broadus said. “That’s the way we play; we’ve had fouls like that the whole year, so we can’t complain about it.”
After Fuller tried to draw a charge, instead yielding a Nolan Smith layup, Broadus was called for a technical foul, the Bearcats’ tenth. But Duke made just one technical free throw, and Binghamton responded with a 7-2 run.
With five minutes remaining in the half, the Bearcats settled in on offense and pulled within 10 points as they traded baskets with the Blue Devils. Fuller drew a charge on Elliot Williams to help Binghamton net a badly-needed defensive stop, and Emanuel Mayben hit a step back 3-pointer to bring BU within seven. After Scheyer made two free throws, Brandon Herbert hit a 3 to pull Binghamton within six.
But in a theme that extended to the second period, the Bearcats could not find a way to stop Duke inside to close the first half and trailed at the break 34-45.
In the first half, the Bearcats shot 53.8 perccent overall and 54.5 percent from three, whereas Duke shot 48.3 percent and 25 percent, respectively. But Duke took 18 first half free throws, hitting 15, while Binghamton took two and missed both.
“I thought they played really hard. They took the game to us in the first half,” Krzyzewski said. “There were large portions of the first half where they played harder than us.”
The Bearcats did not make a single free throw until Rivera completed a 3-point play with under eight minutes remaining in the game and finished 1 of 5 at the stripe to Duke’s 21 of 25.
Binghamton also outshot Duke over 40 minutes, hitting 52.9 percent overall and 46.7 percent from three to Duke’s 49.1 percent and 45 percent. But the Blue Devils won every other statistical battle, including pulling down 38 rebounds to Binghamton’s 20, and causing 18 Bearcat turnovers, with 11 coming from point guards Malik Alvin and Mayben.
“They’re a great defensive team. They take you off your sets and things like that,” Rivera said.
Broadus pulled his starters in the final minute to allow walk-on Matt Mullins to enter the game, and Mullins responded by hitting the game’s final shot.
Duke will face No. 7 seed Texas in the second round of the tournament tomorrow.
The 24-point loss ended Binghamton’s 11-game winning streak and ended their magical season. During Binghamton’s run in the second half of the year, the Bearcats seemingly refused to lose as they came back from large deficits against America East foes and hit several clutch shots en route to winning the AE regular season and tournament championships.
“I gave it a good run the two years I was at the school,” said Fuller, who will graduate this spring. “Like coach Broadus said, you have to go out sometime, and luckily we went out to a good team, a good university today.”
Though the Bearcats will lose their captain in Fuller, they will spend the next week digesting their season and preparing for a title defense in 2009-10.
“This was a great year for us,” Rivera said. “It was a great experience, you know. Me and my team just took all the good out of it, and learned from our mistakes. Hopefully, we’ll be back here next year.”