Duke's Jeremy Roach and Dariq Whitehead on advancing to ACC final

Things came full circle for the Duke Blue Devils in their semifinal matchup against the Miami Hurricanes. The last time the Blue Devils saw the Hurricanes, they were on the business end of a severe wake-up call courtesy of an 81-59 defeat. After that game, Duke went on to play some stellar basketball for the rest of the season. Fast forward to Friday night’s ACC Tournament semifinal matchup, where the Blue Devils repaid the Hurricanes for that defeat with an 85-78 victory to advance to the finals. After the game, the ESPN crew covering the tournament caught up with two Duke stars in the game, guard Jeremy Roach and wing Dariq Whitehead.

Whitehead was aggressive from the opening tip, and that paid off for Duke all night long. Also, the ball movement was crisp for the Blue Devils, something that was absent from the start of the season. Whitehead took on the task of explaining the shift in his mentality to be aggressive tonight and the shift in the team’s mentality too.

“Just my teammates believing in me,” said Whitehead. “They told me to come out and be aggressive. That’s something he (Roach) tells me every game. So, I just had to come out here and be aggressive and get the win.

“That’s something we learned as the season went on. At the beginning of the year, the ball was sticking a lot, and that’s something that coach told us to constantly keep learning. I feel as the year went on, we just got better at making the extra pass, and I feel like that’s the difference with our team this year; making the extra pass.”

Roach on the young Blue Devils ‘I’m proud of them’

As for Roach, the veteran of the group, he couldn’t be more proud of the young Blue Devils for their performance on the night and for keeping their heads on straight among all the noise during the season.

“Really coming together,” said Roach. “We knew when guys make runs; it’s a tough team. Miami’s a good team. But when guys make runs, we got to stick even closer together. I think we did that tonight.

“I’m proud of them. They kept their heads on all season with all the outside noise; everybody coming in and saying whatever they gotta say. But we stuck together, we stuck with the 15 guys in the locker room, listened to the coaching staff, and we’re on to the championship right now.”

Up next for Duke is the winner of the second semifinal matchup between Clemson and Virginia. In the regular season, Duke lost to both the Tigers and Cavaliers. So, certainly, the Blue Devils wouldn’t mind getting a chance at revenge against either program in the ACC Tournament final.