Duke Drops ACC Tournament Quarterfinal to Wolfpack, 74-69

Thursday, March 14

Washington, D.C.

7 p.m.

Duke University

24-8,15-5ACC

NC State

20-14,9-11ACC

NC State

Duke

Duke Drops ACC Tournament Quarterfinal to Wolfpack, 74-69

3/14/2024 10:21:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – No. 11 Duke dropped its ACC Tournament quarterfinal matchup, 74-69, to NC State on Thursday night. Kyle Filipowski scored 28 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to pace the Blue Devils at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Defense was the theme early, with neither team scoring through the first three minutes of action. Jared McCain got the first points on the board at the 16:37 mark, converting twice from the charity stripe.
NC State used a 6-of-7 shooting stretch to take an early lead, 14-8, at the under-12 timeout. A dunk by Mark Mitchell snapped a six-point run by the Wolfpack and drew Duke within five, 15-10. The teams traded 3-pointers, with Ty rese Proctor connecting on Duke's end of the floor, and Duke trailed by just two, 24-22, with 6:50 remaining in the first half.
A driving layup by Kyle Filipowski, followed by a steal and layup from the sophomore, put Duke in the lead, 26-24, out of the break. A Mitchell dunk gave the Blue Devils their largest lead of the night, 28-24, but NC State responded with five quick points, triggering a Duke timeout with 4:10 on the first-half clock.
NC State emerged from the locker room with six unanswered points, leading to an early Duke timeout with 17:07 on the timer. After going down by nine, 48-39, the Blue Devils surged back with a 7-2 run, capped by back-to-back buckets from Filipowski.
The Wolfpack maintained a lead that ebbed between five and 10 points throughout a four-minute stretch, with a Filipowski three-point play pulling Duke within five, 67-62, out of the final media timeout. A Filipowski layup with 17 seconds left gave him 28 total points and narrowed the margin to just two, but Duke fell just short of reclaiming the lead en route to the 74-69 final score.

NOTES

Duke's defense held NC State to 74 points, 2.3 below its season average of 76.3. The Blue Devils have held 27 of their 32 opponents to below their respective scoring average.
NC State's 18 second-chance points (on nine offensive rebounds) are the most by a Duke opponent this season.
Thursday marked the first time the Blue Devils scored fewer than 70 points in the past 17 games (67-59 win at Notre Dame on Jan. 6).
With the loss, Duke moves to 17-10 all-time versus NC State in the ACC Tournament, ending the Blue Devils' three-game win streak against the Wolfpack in the conference postseason.
Duke's record in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals is now 45-19, after suffering its first quarterfinals setback since 2013, also as a No. 2 seed.
The Blue Devils are now 4-2 all-time in ACC Tournament games played in Washington, D.C.
Kyle Filipowski scored a game-high 28 points on 13-of-20 shooting, while also collecting team-highs of 14 rebounds and three steals. Filipowski tallied back-to-back 20-point games for the fourth time this season and first time since scoring 26 at Pittsburgh (Jan. 9) and 30 versus Georgia Tech (Jan. 13).
Filipowski logged his seventh 20-10 game of the season and 11th of his career, along with the ninth double-double of his sophomore campaign and 25th of his career.
Mark Mitchell reached double-figures with 18 points on 8-of-13 shooting, including 2-of-2 from 3-point range, while also securing eight rebounds.
Tyrese Proctor rounded out Duke's double-digit scoring with 10 points, his fourth straight game with at least 10 points and seventh in his last eight appearances.
Proctor, who also tallied seven boards and a team-high five assists without a turnover, played all 40 minutes for the third consecutive contest.

QUOTES

"It's a disappointing loss for us. We wanted to make a run at this thing. Coming off of Saturday, we've been able to spend a lot of time on ourselves for the first time. That didn't translate fully, clearly. NC State is playing the best basketball they've played probably, and you give them credit. They're talented. When you're playing in the postseason, teams don't want to go away. You have to make them go away. Overall, look, I can go through the details of the game. I think for us, though, it's about the competitive fire you need to have in the postseason. I told these guys, one, I think both these guys (Kyle Filipowski and Mark Mitchell) were big-time competitors today. They almost willed us to win the game. They were playing a lot of minutes. Combined, they have 46 (points) and 22 (rebounds). But I just thought they had the will to win, which is what you need. But we didn't have that collectively, overall. For us, we have to go get back to it and work. The biggest postseason is ahead of us, and we're going to be in the tournament. We're excited about that. I don't know where we're going to go, what seed we're going to be. But my thing is all about getting ready and focused for that." - Duke head coach Jon Scheyer
"For me, it's even more of a wake-up call because we could have just had more one game left to the season now. You may have high expectations just with winning the ACC and things like that, but you've got to really see the reality of it and see that every team is really fighting for their lives. We just have to want it more than any other team that we play against." - sophomore center Kyle Filipowski
"Obviously it hurts to lose a game like this, but I think we've just got to use it as motivation and just go back to the drawing board. We're going to have some time to really work on some things, look ourselves in the mirror and see what we can do better; and hopefully next week, we can start our run in the tournament." - sophomore forward Mark Mitchell

UP NEXT

No. 11 Duke (24-8) turns its attention to the NCAA Tournament, with seedings and matchups announced on Selection Sunday – March 17 – on CBS, starting at 6 p.m.

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