Holy smokes does this team have heart, fight and a will to win. And from such a young team. I want to say it was around the 10 min mark or so in the second half, Bagley had just made an incredible save on the other end, sprints down, Carter gets fouled and is on the line. Bagley is clapping his hands ferociously (we were down about 12) and just kept saying let’s go let’s go- he’s our best player, he’s playing with everything he has on both ends, we are down big late and he’s still leading with the emotional energy. I didn’t think we would win with about 7min to go, but i loved the fight we were showing. Even in a loss i would be ok with this young team losing with this much effort. But they just can’t accept losing. They fought all the way back and even when Trent made a huge mistake with the reach earlier, he comes right back with zero conscience and strips his man, and then has the presence of mind to not make the outlet pass to Duval whos right there but to back it out, run off a few more seconds and keep the ball for himself as he’s the best FT shooter. Remarkable stuff for a freshman in that moment. Wow. Then all he does is knock down the game winning/clinching FTs. Man Duke has “IT”.
There were some or a lot of obvious negatives with how we played. Florida was the better team for the majority of the night, as i figured they would be with their guards and experience. They are really good. Duval was terrible for much of the night, so many stupid mistakes- but then he comes back and makes a phenomenal steal and even better pass to Grayson across the court. You live with his mistakes because he is so damn good. As he continues to learn and mature we will continue to get better. He will learn. Carter had a rough night but kept fighting- made big plays on both ends late. Javin did a really nice job when he was in as well. What more can you say about Marvin- kid is by far the best player in the country this early into the season. While Grayson had a tough second half, with the 3 being his only points i actually thought he played poised the entire game. That was a huge shot and he made the defender fly past him and nailed it. He was 4-8 from deep and i thought played pretty solid defense and ran the team very well with Duval out and we needed everyone of his 7 dimes.
What A Win.
