Articles

NBA Draft: Zabian Dowdell

Whether because of sheer physical talent, basketball savvy, impressive hustle, or a sterling personality, the Collegehoops.net All-Excitement Team is for players who make it fun and exciting to be college basketball fans.

All-Excitement Team
G: Acie Law (Texas A&M)
F: Chase Budinger (Arizona)
F: Kevin Durant (Texas)
F: Julian Wright (Kansas)
C: Greg Oden (Ohio State)

Second Team All-Excitement
G: Dominic James (Marquette)
F: Deron Washington (Virginia Tech)
F: Al Thornton (Florida State)
F: Jaokim Noah (Florida)
C: Stephane Lasme (UMASS)

For awhile, it looked like Duke was going to tease the haters once again by pulling out another close, poorly-played home win. But Virginia Tech, a team that has struggled over the last year and a half to win close games, pulled out the 69-67 overtime win.

The way Duke mishandled the ball, they really had no business being in the game. At one point, the Blue Devils had 21 turnovers to just 7 from Virginia Tech. In the end, VT ended up with 13 steals to Duke's 2. That includes 5 from Deron Washington, who at one point jumped over Greag Paulus (literally) to make a nice lay up, and then blocked the Duke PG's three at the buzzer. Paulus ended a horrific game with more turnovers than points, assists, and rebounds combined. The loss drops Duke to 13-2, and probably down to the 10-12 range in the polls (which is still too high). The Dukies only have one win over a currently ranked team (#16 Air Force) and don't play a ranked team again until Clemson in 3 weeks. For VT, the win puts them at 11-4 overall and atop the ACC as the only 2-0 team right now. (BC, up 25-11 on NC State will probably join them at 2-0 by the end of the afternoon.)