Just….wow.
How rarely does a basketball game…any game, really…live up to hype? With so much emotional investment put in to the first-ever ACC meeting between the Syracuse Orange and the Duke Blue Devils, it seemed impossible for the game to meet the expectations, hopes and wonder heaped on it by not just Orange fans but college basketball fans everywhere.
Yet, by the time the Orange held on to defeat the Blue Devils, 91-89 in overtime, it not only lived up to the hype, but, somehow, surpassed it.
A flurry of Duke three-pointers unlike anything I've ever seen. And I'm a Syracuse fan, so I know of teams randomly becoming three-point-making machines.
A performance for the ages by C.J. Fair and Jerami Grant, a two-man-gang that flexed their muscles over and over, willing Syracuse into a lead they kept for most of the day.
Two great teams. No lead that ever felt safe. No time when it ever felt over, even when it was. Fourty-seven heart attacks caused, rescinded and caused all over again. All in front of a record-breaking crowd that never stopped making noise. No game like it in memory.
If this is what we have to look forward to in the ACC, than we're going to be just fine in terms of rivalry and great basketball.
Plenty more recap to come but in the meantime, go nuts in the comments. An amazing game. Round One goes to Syracuse. See you again real soon, Duke.
