Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski was asked about an Ohio State player and almost chuckled.
"I wasn't focused on each of their guys," he said. "I was trying not to lose by 30."
It was that kind of night for the fourth-ranked Blue Devils.
Jared Sullinger scored 21 points and three teammates were close behind as No. 2 Ohio State roared out to an 11-0 lead and never looked back in rolling to an 85-63 victory Tuesday night in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
Buckeyes fans chanted "overrated" at the Blue Devils in the final minute.
NBA star LeBron James had a front-row seat for the rout, but he was booed loudly when he walked to his courtside seat with Miami Heat teammate Dwyane Wade. That was about the only time the fans expressed any dissatisfaction with anything on the court.
"This basketball team is special," Sullinger said.
The Buckeyes (7-0) never trailed, weathering a Duke rally in the first half and then leading by 20 for most of the second half.
"Sometimes you just get your butt kicked," said Krzyzewski, who said his young team appeared tired.
Austin Rivers had 22 points and Mason Plumlee 16 for the Blue Devils (7-1), coming off wins over ranked opponents Michigan and Kansas in their previous two games.
William Buford scored 20, Deshaun Thomas 18 and Aaron Craft 17 for the Buckeyes, who gave the Big Ten a 4-2 edge in the conference matchups. Craft also had eight assists and five rebounds and was a terror on defense.
Few would have expected such a lopsided result. Duke came in with a record of 11-1 in ACC/Big Ten games and had beaten its last five Big Ten opponents — including conference bullies Michigan State and Michigan already this season.
The Blue Devils had also won their last four games in which both teams were ranked in the top five.
The Buckeyes led by 24 with 15 minutes left after Craft banked in a three — he laughed after it clanked in. The Blue Devils responded with a 7-0 run to get as close as 58-41 but Ohio State continued to control the paint. Sullinger was fouled and hit two foul shots, then powered up a shot off the backboard for a 66-43 lead shortly before clock trouble allowed both teams to take a breather with 8:42 remaining.
On consecutive possessions, Ohio State got a dunk by Sullinger and a three by Craft thanks to around-the-horn passing that found an open player.
"We were taking great shots," Craft said of the Buckeyes, who shot 59 percent from the field and made 8 of 14 3-pointers. "It all started with Jared inside. That just opens everything else up."
It was a festive, rock-concert sort of a capacity crowd of 18,809 at Value City Arena for the game, which was billed as the biggest nonconference home game ever for Ohio State.
One female student held up a sign meant for Sullinger that said, "Jared, will you marry me?" When Rivers — the son of Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers— had a turnover, the Ohio State student section chanted, "Daddy's boy! Daddy's boy!"
The first half was a shocker, with Ohio State setting the pace early, shrugging aside a Duke comeback and then pulling away for a gaping 47-28 lead at the break as Buford and Thomas each had 13 points.
"I was sort of the X factor," Thomas said with a grin.
The Buckeyes ran off the first 11 points — five by Craft and four by Buford — while Duke's younger players appeared nervous and tentative.
"They just jumped on us from the beginning," Plumlee said. "We weren't ready to play."
After Plumlee ended the cold start with a shot over Sullinger four minutes in, the Blue Devils regained their balance as Rivers and Seth Curry took turns beating the Buckeyes off the dribble for layups.
Plumlee's reverse dunk — the crowd howled that he traveled — cut Ohio State's lead to 18-17 at the 9:50 mark.
But just that quickly, the Buckeyes — who won their 29th in a row at home — streaked away again.
After Buford made two foul shots, Sullinger hit a leaner off glass and Plumlee protested his second foul, with the Buckeyes sophomore completing the three-point play. Substitute guard Jordan Sibert went high over the rim to tip in a miss before Buford scored in transition. Thomas then tossed in a half-hook from the left baseline to cap a 10-0 run that made it 28-17.
During that spell and beyond, the Buckeyes scored on eight consecutive possessions. When Craft hit a 14-foot jumper off a kickback pass from Sullinger at the 5:38 mark, it was 34-21. The lead never dropped below double digits again.
The Buckeyes, typically a mild-mannered team on the boards, won the rebound battle (33-27) and outscored the Blue Devils 15-0 at one point on second-chance points.
It was Duke's second game in Columbus. In the only other meeting in Ohio's capital city, the Blue Devils won 94-89 in double overtime on Dec. 30, 1964, at old St. John Arena.
The Blue Devils had won their last 35 games in November, dating to a 73-62 loss to Marquette in 2006.
But not tonight.
"I've had my butt kicked before," Krzyzewski said. "We've kicked some butt. Tonight my butt's sore."
The problem with the NCAA tournament bracket that was unveiled Sunday night isn't the product.
Debate over who got in and who didn't is going to occur every year whether the field consists of 64 teams, 68 teams or the 96 teams the NCAA will someday shove down our throats.
And while only one member of this year's tournament selection committee has actually coached Division I basketball - Stan Morrison, who last did so in 1998 -
the process isn't necessarily the issue either.
The problem is accountability - specifically, the committee's utter lack of it. Without it, we have no way of knowing whether the process was fair or not.
Something is rotten in Indianapolis.
Through the years, the tournament selection committee, especially whomever is chairman, has mastered the art of the non-answer. Ask a committee member whether the sun will set in the west today, and you will be told that a very careful study will be done on that question and the committee will do a great job coming up with the answer and that the sun is extremely well-coached but it may or may not have enough votes to set in the west.
This year's committee chairman, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith, who probably should have resigned that position last week to tend to his day job in Columbus, wouldn't answer the simplest and most obvious questions Sunday night.
Why didn't Virginia Tech make the field? Smith's answer, once you filtered out all the babble about "quantifiable criteria" and how well-coached the Hokies are, was this: The Hokies didn't get enough votes.
No kidding, Mr. Chairman.
When Smith was asked whether the ACC tournament championship game between Duke and North Carolina had decided who got the final No. 1 seed, he went off on a body-of-work tangent and claimed one game didn't decide the last No. 1 seed.
Does he seriously think anyone believes that? Is he saying that if North Carolina had beaten Duke for the second time in the past eight days and had lost one game in two months, Duke still would have been the last No. 1 seed? If so, then the committee is doing an even worse job than people think.
And while only one member of this year's tournament selection committee has actually coached Division I basketball - Stan Morrison, who last did so in 1998 -
the process isn't necessarily the issue either.
The problem is accountability - specifically, the committee's utter lack of it. Without it, we have no way of knowing whether the process was fair or not.
Something is rotten in Indianapolis.
Through the years, the tournament selection committee, especially whomever is chairman, has mastered the art of the non-answer. Ask a committee member whether the sun will set in the west today, and you will be told that a very careful study will be done on that question and the committee will do a great job coming up with the answer and that the sun is extremely well-coached but it may or may not have enough votes to set in the west.This year's committee chairman, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith, who probably should have resigned that position last week to tend to his day job in Columbus, wouldn't answer the simplest and most obvious questions Sunday night.
Why didn't Virginia Tech make the field? Smith's answer, once you filtered out all the babble about "quantifiable criteria" and how well-coached the Hokies are, was this: The Hokies didn't get enough votes.
No kidding, Mr. Chairman.
When Smith was asked whether the ACC tournament championship game between Duke and North Carolina had decided who got the final No. 1 seed, he went off on a body-of-work tangent and claimed one game didn't decide the last No. 1 seed.
Does he seriously think anyone believes that? Is he saying that if North Carolina had beaten Duke for the second time in the past eight days and had lost one game in two months, Duke still would have been the last No. 1 seed? If so, then the committee is doing an even worse job than people think.
The committee's hypocrisy is in trying to keep all its decision-making processes secret while at the same time claiming "transparency."
Smith says Virginia Tech didn't get in because it didn't get enough votes. Fine. Who voted for the Hokies? Who voted against them? If members of Congress have to vote publicly on tax increases or whether or not to go to war, why in the world shouldn't tournament selection committee members have to explain why they voted for or against teams? All the voting is done by computer now; every single vote should be made public.
Committee members have absolutely no problem with accepting the many perks that come with their roles, but they don't seem to own the responsibility. No one forces anyone to be on the committee. If you want to be a member, you should have to explain what you did and why.
Here's another question that should be answered: Who was responsible for scouting the ACC this season? Before the season, each committee member is assigned three conferences (presumably someone takes four because there are 31 altogether). The NCAA supplies each member with satellite TV and any game tapes necessary to keep track of the leagues throughout the season.
So, who was the ACC's scout this season? Did he vote for or against Virginia Tech? What did he say about Virginia Tech in the room? Who was the scout for Conference-USA? What did he say that got UAB into the field? Is the scout for the Big Ten being given a "man-of-the-year" award by Comissioner Jim Delaney for somehow getting seven teams into the field?
In an e-mail response to two questions directed to Smith on Monday - who was assigned to the ACC this season and who voted for and against Virginia Tech? - NCAA spokesman David Worlock wrote that the committee does not release the results of any vote taken or who scouts which conference but did-at great length-explain all the information that is available to the committee members.
The committee has an absolute right to get it wrong. No one is perfect, although it doesn't appear anyone in power cares about improving the committee's basketball IQ. This summer, Smith and Morrison will be replaced by two men who have never been Division I coaches. That means there will be zero ex-coaches on next year's committee.
What the committee does not have the right to do is act as if honest answers regarding the selection process would somehow jeopardize national security. It is worth noting that the last thing the committee does Selection Sunday afternoon is prepare the chairman by agreeing on answers for the questions most likely to be asked. Saying Virginia Tech didn't have enough votes isn't an answer, though; it's a dodge.
Anyone familiar with the term "Watergate" knows the cover-up is always worse than the crime. After the past week, Smith should know better than anyone. (See: Tressel, Jim).
Every year, several schools believe - often correctly - that their being left out of the NCAA tournament field is unfair. One can make the case even the most egregious omissions are mostly the results of honest mistakes.
But the refusal to be accountable for such mistakes is anything but honest. And there's not an excuse for allowing it to continue.
Committee members have absolutely no problem with accepting the many perks that come with their roles, but they don't seem to own the responsibility. No one forces anyone to be on the committee. If you want to be a member, you should have to explain what you did and why.
Here's another question that should be answered: Who was responsible for scouting the ACC this season? Before the season, each committee member is assigned three conferences (presumably someone takes four because there are 31 altogether). The NCAA supplies each member with satellite TV and any game tapes necessary to keep track of the leagues throughout the season.
So, who was the ACC's scout this season? Did he vote for or against Virginia Tech? What did he say about Virginia Tech in the room? Who was the scout for Conference-USA? What did he say that got UAB into the field? Is the scout for the Big Ten being given a "man-of-the-year" award by Comissioner Jim Delaney for somehow getting seven teams into the field?
In an e-mail response to two questions directed to Smith on Monday - who was assigned to the ACC this season and who voted for and against Virginia Tech? - NCAA spokesman David Worlock wrote that the committee does not release the results of any vote taken or who scouts which conference but did-at great length-explain all the information that is available to the committee members.
The committee has an absolute right to get it wrong. No one is perfect, although it doesn't appear anyone in power cares about improving the committee's basketball IQ. This summer, Smith and Morrison will be replaced by two men who have never been Division I coaches. That means there will be zero ex-coaches on next year's committee.
What the committee does not have the right to do is act as if honest answers regarding the selection process would somehow jeopardize national security. It is worth noting that the last thing the committee does Selection Sunday afternoon is prepare the chairman by agreeing on answers for the questions most likely to be asked. Saying Virginia Tech didn't have enough votes isn't an answer, though; it's a dodge.
Anyone familiar with the term "Watergate" knows the cover-up is always worse than the crime. After the past week, Smith should know better than anyone. (See: Tressel, Jim).
Every year, several schools believe - often correctly - that their being left out of the NCAA tournament field is unfair. One can make the case even the most egregious omissions are mostly the results of honest mistakes.
But the refusal to be accountable for such mistakes is anything but honest. And there's not an excuse for allowing it to continue.
