Duke Basketball: Takeaways from stunning overtime win at North Carolina

This team knows how to get the job done

Plain and simple, never count this team out. There is no doubt that Duke should not have won this game, but they did because they never quit and they got the job done. The Blue Devils were down 13 points multiple times with less than five minutes to go in the game and then they were down five with 16 SECONDS left in overtime.

However, this isn’t the first time Duke won a nitty-gritty game. Duke won games against Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Pitt, Syracuse, Boston College and now North Carolina that were all close and tight games.

Some might look at this and think it’s a bad thing that the Blue Devils are in positions to lose more than they should be, but the fact that they win these games should be more important than the fact that it was close.

At the end of the day the only thing that matters is that you have more points on the scoreboard than your opponent when the clock hits zero and more times than not in close games, that is the case for Duke.

For example, take last year’s tournament run from Duke, two close games that were both won by one or two points for Duke against Central Florida and Virginia Tech. Did Duke get eliminated because they won close games? No, they moved on because they got the job done.

It doesn’t matter if you win a close game because if you win the game, that’s the only thing that is put on your record. Games are going to be close, especially tournament games and the fact that Duke has proven time and time again that they can win close games should be comforting to Duke fans.

Like I said, they would be comforted more if they won games by a lot and didn’t allow it to get close, but what’s the fun in that?

Duke is a national title contender for several main reasons and one of them was exhibited on Saturday night; their ability to win nitty-gritty games and their never-quit, always fight mentality.