Breaking just now:Tar Heels receive sad and terrifying reports

The Blue Devils acknowledged their poor showing on Thursday night and say they’ll go back and attempt to figure out the correct formula with the NCAA Tournament next up.

Head coach Jon Scheyer’s second foray into college basketball’s postseason began with a thud as the Blue Devils were bounced from the 2024 ACC Tournament in the quarterfinal round on Thursday night by NC State.

Less than two weeks ago Duke had out-rebounded, out-hustled, and out-executed the Wolfpack in Raleigh, winning by 15 points in a game that seemed to solidify the Blue Devils’ status as on

Since that time, however, things have changed dramatically.

The Blue Devils were beaten for a second time by North Carolina in a game that showed the veteran Tar Heels to be the aggressor for the start. After several days of vowing to attack and play with hunger following their rivalry sweep…Duke once again looked like a team ready for the offseason in their first – and now only – game of the 2024 ACC Championship.

Kyle Filipowski scored a game-high 28 points on 13-of-20 shooting, while also collecting team-highs of 14 rebounds and three steals. Classmate Mark Mitchell added 18 points on 8-of-13 shooting, including 2-of-2 from 3-point range, while also securing eight rebounds but outside of those two players the rest of Duke’s shortened rotation were largely ineffective.

Following the 74-69 setback the team met the media to once again discuss a disappointing effort and to look ahead to what will be the final chapter in the season. Here’s what they had to say..

JON SCHEYER: Well, obviously, look, it’s disappointing. It’s a disappointing loss for us. We wanted to make a run at this thing. Coming off of Saturday, we’ve been able to spend a lot of time on ourselves for the first time. That didn’t translate fully, clearly. NC State is playing the best basketball they’ve played. probably, and you give them credit. They’re talented. When you’re playing in the postseason, teams don’t want to go away. You have to make them go away. Overall, look, I can go through the details of the game. I think for us, though, it’s about the competitive fire you need to have in the postseason

I told these guys, one, I think both these guys were big-time competitors today. They almost willed us to win the game. They were playing a lot of minutes. Combined, they have 46 and 22. But I just thought they had the will to win, which is what you need. But we didn’t have that collectively overall. For us, we have to go get back to it and work. The biggest postseason is ahead of us, and we’re going to be in the tournament. We’re excited about that. I don’t know where we’re going to go, what seed we’re going to be. But my thing is all about getting ready and focused for that. Obviously I’ll answer any questions these guys want to answer, but it’s disappointing, and we’re going to get back to work. Bottom line, going to get back to work and figure this out.