Duke Glad NCAA's are Neutral Courts and Not on the Road

So Duke is 25-5 this year, and all five of those losses have come on the road. Now in their defense three of those losses have come against teams that are currently ranked, in Wisconsin, Georgetown and now Maryland. However, the other two losses came against North Carolina State and Georgia Tech. (Not to mention the fact that they were utterly dominated in the games at NC State and Georgetown)

On Wednesday you saw a team that though they were in the game, and had the lead in the second half, seemed to be in the midst of committing grand larceny, because they were stealing a game they should not have been in at all. Maryland had a 40-29 lead when they just seemed to fall asleep at the end of the first half. Though Greivis Vasquez was not going to let that happen, scoring four of his 20 points at the end of the game, on two of the tougher shots of the game, week, month thus far...I mean it is only the third of the month.


Duke however is a potential number one seed come tournament time that is like night and day away from home. Now they are undefeated in neutral site games this year, but they are a home cooking team since their neutral site games are at Madison Square Garden, where they have played at numerous times in recent years.


The fact of the matter is that the Blue Devils are a team that relies heavily on the big three of Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith. The team goes how they go, and away from Duke they are not doing so well, especially Singler. While Scheyer away from Cameron Indoor Stadium shoots 39% from the field and 36% from three (compared to 42% and 41% respectively at home) and Nolan Smith shoots 42% from the field and 39% from three (compared to 44% and 41%), Singler is horrid away from Cameron.

Singler shoots 41% from the field and 39% from three at Duke, but on when not on his own campus he shoots 36% from the field and only 32% from three. Not to mention if you take away a 10-17 night at Wisconsin, he would be shooting 34% from the field. Bad news for Dookies everywhere relying on Singler come tournament time, as this season on neutral court games he has shot a combined 15-51 from the field, including 4-18 from three.


Duke is a team that has essentially beaten three teams that anybody is expecting something from in the tournament, in Maryland, Gonzaga and maybe Clemson. The rest are not really wins worth noting to be honest. UCONN? Georgia Tech? Va Tech? If these are the wins that you are going to point to as a potential number one seed that struggles away from home as wins worth substance, then another early out seems possible for Duke.