GREENVILLE, S.C. — Just a few minutes after his Duke team narrowly avoided one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Tournament history, Jon Scheyer gave his counterpart his due.
Scheyer said second-year Siena coach Gerry McNamara had his players “way more ready to play” in the first-round game at Bon Secours Wellness Arena than Scheyer did. Despite No. 1 overall seed Duke pulling off the 71-65 win, Scheyer said simply, “He outcoached me. He outcoached us.”
“A tournament’s all about your competitive readiness, and Siena had that as well as any team we’ve gone against,” the 38-year-old Northbrook native said. “We anticipated them trying to really do things to keep us out of the paint, and they executed great. The moments we made runs, they didn’t flinch.
“I think that’s a reflection on him, and that’s a reflection on his players. They were big time today, and it took us everything that we had to win it.”
Siena, playing in its first NCAA Tournament since 2010, led by as many as 13 points early in the second half and didn’t allow Duke to regain a lead after halftime until there were 4 minutes, 25 seconds left.
Scheyer, a national champion as a player and assistant at Duke, called it “one of the hardest moments for me in sport, period, to not have your best stuff.”
But the Blue Devils used an 11-0 run — which included seven points from All-American forward Cameron Boozer — to take a 67-61 lead with 1:36 to play. Siena (23-12) cut it back to four points twice but couldn’t pull off the upset. The Saints shot 23.5% in the second half.
Duke (33-2), which played without injured starting center Patrick Ngongba and guard Caleb Foster, advanced to face No. 9 seed TCU on Saturday. Boozer led the Blue Devils with 22 points, 13 rebounds and three assists but also five turnovers.
“They did a great job protecting the paint,” Boozer said. “They really softened the ball. They assaulted the paint. They make you settle for 3s. We took the bait on that.
“We really didn’t come out ready to play today, and we’ve got to be a lot better moving forward. Coach says all the time, whether you win by 1 or 25, it doesn’t matter. So just onto the next.”
McNamara also knows a little something about what it takes to succeed in March, even if he did it at a higher-level program. He led Syracuse to the 2003 national championship as a player and coached in two Final Fours over 15 seasons as an assistant with the Orange.
He said after getting back from winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament in Atlantic City, N.J., last week that he could tell his players had the right energy.
“I’m crushed for them because they played well enough to win,” McNamara said. “They did. But we got kind of crushed on the glass in the second half. The free-throw differential really hurt us, and we had a couple chances late to make a shot. We just couldn’t capitalize.
“For me to take this job, the goal was always to play on this stage, and I’m really, really proud of how they represented our school, our community, the alumni. Even the way they talked about each other yesterday up here. I said after Atlantic City I’m a proud coach. I’m still a damn proud coach.”
Duke outrebounded Siena 43-31 and made 18 of 21 free throws, while Siena got to the line just six times.
McNamara played his five starters for all but one second of the game. He said he felt he needed the size of 7-foot center Riley Mulvey and 6-7 forward Francis Folefac the entire time to defend Boozer. He thought the rest of the group gave him the best chance to win.
Guard Gavin Doty had 21 points, four rebounds and two assists, and Folefac added 18 points and seven rebounds.
Siena players said afterward that they have had a policy on no moral victories this season.
“I was in my hotel room praying the rosary before the game today, and I had full confidence we were going to win this game,” Doty said. “If you’d have told me we were up by 10 at halftime, I’d have believed it because that’s how much faith I have in these guys.
“Seeing our coaching staff, getting us ready for the scout, they did an unbelievable job. Unbelievable. It sucks that we came up short, but I’m proud of the fight we had.”
