Colorado State University Athletics
Game notes: CSU travels to face No. 7/5 Duke
12/5/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 5, 2011
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Colorado State at No. 7/5 Duke | Game 9 |
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| CSU RETURNING STATISTICAL LEADERS | DUKE STATISTICAL LEADERS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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• Schedule/Results
• Season Statistics
Opening tip
• Colorado State travels to Durham, N.C., and famed Cameron Indoor Stadium, for a nationally televised matchup against the No. 7/5-ranked Duke Blue Devils.
• Wednesday's game is set for a 7 p.m. ET/5 p.m. MT tipoff on ESPN2, with Mike Patrick (play-by-play) and Len Elmore (analyst).
• Fans can also catch the radio broadcast on the Colorado State Sports Network as Voice of the Rams, Brian Roth, calls the action.
• Streaming audio is also available at CSURams.com/allaccess.
• Live stats are available by at GoDuke.com
• The Rams (5-3), are coming off of an 83-77 loss at Northern Iowa on Saturday as part of the third annual Mountain West/Missouri Valley Challenge. The loss snapped a three-game win streak for the Rams.
• The Blue Devils (7-1) are coming off an 85-63 loss at No. 2-ranked Ohio State as part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Duke is now ranked seventh by the Associated Press and fifth in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll after rising to No. 3/4 with seven consecutive wins to open the season.
• The matchup pits two of the country's top three-point shooting teams against one another. Colorado State enters Wednesday's game ranked No. 1 nationally in three-point shooting percentage, connecting from long range at a clip of 45.6 percent. Duke ranks 14th, hitting 43.2 percent of its shots from beyond the arc.
About Duke
• Duke, ranked seventh by the Associated Press and fifth in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll, enters Wednesday's contest against Colorado State with a 7-1 mark.
• The Blue Devils have not played since Nov. 29, an 85-63 setback at No. 2-ranked Ohio State as party of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.
• Duke is 3-0 at Cameron Indoor Stadium this season, recording wins over Belmont (77-76), Presbyterian (96-55) and Davidson (82-69) at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
• The Blue Devils have also recorded neutral-site victories over Michigan State (74-69) at Madison Square Garden, and vs. Tennessee (77-67), No. 15 Michigan (82-75) and No. 14 Kansas (68-61) at the Maui Invitational in Lahaina, Hawaii.
• The teams' only road game of the season, at No. 2 Ohio State, resulted in a loss.
• Duke enters Wednesday's game tied for the longest active home-court win streak in the NCAA at 39 consecutive games. Duke's last home loss was Feb. 11, 2009 when the No. 6-ranked Blue Devils fell 101-87 to No. 3-ranked North Carolina.
• Duke posted a 32-5 mark in 2010-11, including an 13-3 conference record and a second-place finish in the ACC. The Blue Devils fell in the Sweet 16 of the 2011 NCAA tournament to the Arizona Wildcats.
• Freshman guard Austin Rivers leads the Blue Devils in scoring, averaging 15.4 points per game. Junior guard Seth Curry, who ranks 15th nationally with a free-throw percentage of .929, is just behind Rivers at a scoring clip of 14.1 per game. Junior forwards Ryan Kelly (12.8 ppg.) and Mason Plumlee (12.0 ppg.) also averaged double-figures scoring for the Blue Devils.
• Mason Plumlee ranks as the Blue Devils' top rebounder, averaging 9.8 boards per game, which is good enough for 31st nationally.
• Head coach Mike Krzyzewski, the all-time leader in coaching victories, enters Wednesday's game with a career record of 907-285 in his 37th season. He is 834-226 in his 32nd season at Duke, and has led the Blue Devils to four national championships.
Series vs. Duke
• Wednesday evening's contest marks just the second in the series between the CSU Rams and the Duke Blue Devils.
• The initial matchup between the two schools came during the 2003 NCAA tournament when Duke, led by Dahntay Jones, held off Brian Greene, Matt Nelson and the Rams for a a 67-57 opening-round victory at the John M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• The matchup marked CSU's most recent appearance in the NCAA tournament. Now under fifth-year Head Coach Tim Miles, CSU has participated in back-to-back postseason tourneys with berths in the 2010 College Basketball Invitational and the 2011 National Invitation Tournament.
A closer look at the 2003 matchup
• CSU entered the matchup as a No. 14 seed, and was matched up with the third-seeded Blue Devils after winning the Mountain West's automatic bid as tournament champions.
• Sophomore C Matt Nelson, fresh off of an MVP performance at the MW tourney, led the Rams with 21 points and eight boards in the contest, while senior F Brian Greene notched a double-double with 14 points and 10 boards, and added three steals.
• Duke was led in scoring by Dahntay Jones, who posted a game-high 23 points and added six rebounds. J.J. Redick also finished in double-figures scoring for Duke with 16 points. Shelden Williams finished with nine points and a game-high 12 rebounds.
• After falling behind by as many as 12 points early in the second half, CSU cut the Duke lead to just two points, 59-57, with 3:01 to play. But the postseason experience of the Blue Devils showed through as they answered CSU's six-point run with eight straight to end the game.
• Duke fell to eventual national runner-up Kansas in the Sweet 16.
Hornung's Impact
• Starting forward Pierce Hornung, who had played in 67 consecutive games to start his career at Colorado State, has missed CSU's last five games - vs. Southern Miss (Nov. 19), vs. UTSA (Nov. 21), vs. Manhattan (Nov. 22), vs. Colorado (Nov. 30) and at UNI (Dec. 3) - after suffering a concussion against Stanford on Nov. 15.
• Prior to the injury Hornung, who was named 2011 MW Sixth Man of the Year, led the Rams in minutes per game, rebounds per game, blocks and steals.
• With Hornung in the starting lineup, the Rams surrendered just 59.3 points per game to open the season with wins over Montana (64-58) and SMU (75-56) before falling to eventual runner-up Stanford (64-52) in the NIT Season Tip-Off.
• Since Hornung's injury, the Rams have gone 3-2, and have given up an average of 77.4 points per game.
A win over Duke will...
• Move the Rams to 6-3 to open the 2011-12 season.
• Snap Colorado State's five-game road losing streak.
• Move the Rams even, 1-1, in the all-time series against the Blue Devils.
• Give Colorado State its first victory over a ranked opponent since a 60-48 victory vs. No. 25 Air Force (March 11, 2003) in the Mountain West tournament. CSU has lost 15 straight to ranked opponents.
• Mark the Rams' first road victory over a ranked opponent since Dec. 20, 1989, a 78-67 victory over No. 24-ranked North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The Rams have lost 17 straight road games against ranked opponents.
• Give Colorado State its first victory over a top-10 ranked opponent since the Rams scored a 63-51 victory over No. 5-ranked UTEP on Jan. 19, 1984.
• Snap Duke's nation-leading 39-game home-court win streak and put an end to the Blue Devils' streak of 83 consecutive home wins against unranked opponents.
Looking ahead
• Colorado State returns to Fort Collins where the team will take 12 days away from the court to focus on finals the week of Dec. 12.
• Colorado State's next contest is slated for Dec. 19, a home matchup against the Texas Southern Tigers.
• Tipoff between the Rams and the Tigers is slated for 7 p.m. MT at Moby Arena
• Fans can catch the game on the Colorado State Sports Network as Voice of the Rams, Brian Roth, calls the action courtside. Streaming audio is also available at CSURams.com/allaccess.
