Written by Steve Wiseman at NCAA.org
Playing for his dream school, Grayson Allen lived a dreamy moment Saturday.
Just like in his driveway as a kid, the clock ticked down and the Duke sophomore guard dribbled the ball looking for the game-winning shot.
In real life, with the Blue Devils down a point, Allen drove, leaped from the side of the lane, banged into Virginia’s Marial Shayok and, as his foot hit the ground, threw the ball toward the basket.
When the ball banked off the glass as the buzzer sounded and bounced through the net, Duke had topped No. 7 Virginia 63-62 in a scintillating ACC basketball game at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Allen punched the air in celebration before being mobbed by his teammates, who formed a dogpile in front of the scorer’s table not seen around Duke since the Blue Devils did the same in Indianapolis after winning the NCAA championship last April.
Duke (19-6, 8-4 in ACC) hasn’t looked like a championship team this season as it played Saturday as an unranked team.
But Allen’s shot — after he was fouled in Duke’s opinion, after he traveled from Virginia’s point of view — personified the team’s growing toughness as it pushed Duke’s winning streak to four in a row.
“That’s a big-time play, wow a big-time play,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “For these kids to be 8-4, it’s just, great. I love my guys. See, you guys don’t enjoy them as much as I do because you are trying to make them like another Duke team. You should just enjoy them as this Duke team, like I am and you’ll see a lot of really neat things.”
This win qualifies as a neat thing and it becomes even greater considering it came on Krzyzewski’s 69th birthday.
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