Virginia Tech stuns Duke as No. 7 seed, wins first ACC tournament title
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NEW YORK — For the second straight Saturday night, Duke failed to deliver Coach K a send-off victory.
This time it was Virginia Tech playing party pooper.
Hunter Cattoor scored a career-high 31 points and the seventh-seeded Hokies won the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament for the first time, beating Duke 82-67 to deny Mike Krzyzewski a league title in his final season.
Virginia Tech (23-12) came to Brooklyn in need of a run to make the NCAA Tournament, and then were staring at elimination on Wednesday when Darius Maddox hit a go-ahead 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat Clemson in overtime.
Virginia Tech coach Mike Young said the Hokies were “luckier than hell” after that game.
After beating Duke how did it feel?
“Gratifying,” Young said.
The Hokies became just the second ACC team to take the crown with four wins in four days and worst-seeded team to win the most-storied conference tournament in college basketball.
They’re also the fourth ACC champion to win the title by beating the top-three seeds.
The Hokies will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 43 years, tied for the fourth-longest span between automatic bids in NCAA Division I history, according to research from ESPN Stats & Information. Virginia Tech’s last — and only — conference tournament championship came in 1979, when the Hokies were in the Metro Conference.
Duke lost Coach K’s final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium to rival North Carolina a week ago, derailing what the school hoped would be a celebration of the winningest coach in Division I men’s college basketball.
The top-seeded and seventh-ranked Blue Devils (28-6) got another chance for a feel-good victory and to add at least one more trophy to the case for the retiring Hall of Famer. Again it was not to be.
“I tell them all the time don’t worry about me,” Krzyzewski said. “Even in a moment of defeat I want to be there with them. How do we use it? How do we get better?
He added: “Last weekend the whole word was…
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Source : espn
