Geoff JohnsonDuke is finally ready to have their revenge against Miami. It was shameful and humiliation for the Blue Devils in January; now is payback time. Hurricanes and Devils will square off Saturday at 6 PM ET.
Miami smashed Duke 90-63 in the first meeting this season, in a game where everybody found out the Hurricanes are for real.
“It wasn’t demoralizing; they played better,” Blue Devils guard Rasheed Sulaimon said. “I believe we have them on the schedule again.”
“We expected them to be terrific, and we have to match terrific, and then you have a terrific game,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “What you had was a terrific win for them, but not a terrific game. We didn’t hold our end of the bargain.”
Miami thinks they are playing great basketball, especially in the second half of games. “Some teams come out in the second half flat and think they have the game won,” Shane Larkin said, who had 18 points in the first meeting, “but we stayed with it with the same energy in the second half. We played great the whole game.”
Miami is fifth in the AP poll, but a few wins could put them as the number one team in the country entering March Madness. “I told them this could be the best year in school history,” Hurricanes coach Jim Larranaga said this week.
Miami has covered four of the last five games against Duke, and their last three meeting the result has ended over the game total.
