Oh the agony. A seventeen point lead in the first half, a twelve point lead at the half and a one point overtime loss, 65-64, on a three-pointer. There are so many, so many, things that could have made this a win for Duke. The shooting was cold, even the open looks. The free throws were atrocious. The refs were inconsistent (but I guess that went both ways). Duke, up two in the final seconds, let Pitt take a three. It would have been better to have fouled the guy and get the ball back. Jon Scheyer took a wild looking shot from pretty far out with about four seconds left in the game instead of passing to someone who could have gotten a higher-percentage layup or something. Then he got his own rebound and put it back up as the clock ticked out, but it just didn’t go in.
As hard as it is to take any loss, at least it was to a good team and it’s early in the season. Duke doesn’t play for just over another two weeks from now, so hopefully this loss, which could have easily been avoided, will piss off all the guys and haunt them enough to light a fire under them the next time they have a big, close game.
Not a whole lot else happened today. I was busy enough at work. Amanda helped Michael do a little Christmas shopping after she got off work, so I only saw her for a few minutes. I went to Adam and Bobby’s place to watch the game. They’re friends of Elliot Clark. While it was enjoyable to watch the game with a few other pumped up Duke fans on a 50-something inch high-def TV, it sucked to watch them lose.
After the game we shot a little basketball to blow off some steam. Elliot and Adam beat me and Bobby (the shortest and tallest) pretty handily.
Amanda stayed home and worked on the finishing touches for the gift that she’d been working on for Josh and Andra off and on for a while now. Ostensibly, she was also getting ready for our Christmas traveling. She was watching the Duke game from home and called me, frustrated, after it was over. One thing she hated was that she knew she’d hear about the loss from people who don’t really even care about basketball tomorrow.
On a nicer note I talked to Konrad Demers today. There’s still no steady work for the family but Margie has applied to be a substitute teacher and Konrad wants to get his GED and take some classes beyond that. The kids are doing well too, which I’m glad to hear.
Zach Dotsey