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Florida State
vs. Duke
3/3/09
The college basketball regular season is two games away from its end
for Coach K and his troubled Duke Blue Devils. With only the number
24th ranked Florida State Seminoles and the number two ranked arch
rival North Carolina Tar Heels left standing in their way.
Although pending the outcome of the final two games of the regular
season and the NCAA tournament, this season for Duke has been a
disappointment. You know the level of expectation for success is
extremely high when you could possibly finish the season in the top
five teams in the country and first or second in your conference and
still have your season considered a failure.
At the beginning of the year the Blue Devils looked tough and
motivated to make something happen in the ACC and their ranking in
the country. At one point they were the number one team, but that
obviously didn’t last very long.
Not only is Duke not going to win the ACC conference this season, in
my opinion, but people are already starting to count them out of the
National Championship title race by putting North Carolina ahead of
them. The Blue Devils are a great team, but they have definitely
lost their intimidation factor this season.
Closing out the season will not be an easy task for the Blue Devils
as they will face two tough ACC opponents in their final two games.
The bigger game will definitely be against the Tar Heels, but they
will have to get through the Seminoles first.
In their last meeting back on January 10th the Seminoles weren’t
really that much of a challenge for Coach K’s Blue Devils as Duke
cruised to a 66-58 victory over Florida State. Since then the
Seminoles have won nine of their last 13 games including two huge
wins over Clemson who just destroyed Duke back in early February.
The Blue Devils will be favored to win this match up and that they
should be, but with the way the Seminoles handled the Clemson Tigers
twice this season there could be a pretty big upset here which could
increase Florida State’s chances of moving up the standings in the
ACC conference before it is all said and done.
Coach K will definitely have his Blue Devils ready for battle in the
last two ACC showdowns against the Tar Heels and Seminoles, but
where or not Duke can come up with these two wins remains to be
seen.
One thing college basketball is famous for is the remarkable upsets
and this just might be one of them. Although the Seminoles pretty
much have no chance at the ACC title they will be playing for their
NCAA tournament lives and getting a win over Duke could potentially
be huge for them.
I would give the chance of upset at about 60% as of right now, but
it will all depend on the way the two teams come out in the first
half. If Florida State gets on top of Duke early I don’t think they
will be able to comeback in the second half.
Sportsbook.com has Duke -12 with a total of 139.5
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