The No. 4 ranked Duke Blue Devils hosted unranked Wake Forest on Tuesday. The Blue Devils did prevail, but did so by the absolute slimmest of margins.
Trailing by one, the Demon Deacons had two chances to win the game in its final seconds. Wake’s leading scorer, Brandon Childress, missed the first. Chaundee Brown pulled down the rebound and put up a shot at the buzzer.
It rolled around on the rim and nearly fell in, but ultimately fell harmlessly to the Cameron Indoor Stadium floor.
Wake Forest came THIS close to upsetting Duke at Cameron Indoor Tuesday night (h/t @ESPN). pic.twitter.com/hgRFRia00l
— Sportsnaut (@Sportsnaut) March 6, 2019
Duke’s status as an NCAA Tournament team is really not up for debate. But had either of these shots dropped, the Blue Devils likely would have had to kiss any hopes at being a No. 1 seed in the tournament goodbye. Even without Zion Williamson, dropping a game at home to a sub-.500 Wake Forest team would be hard to excuse.
Even such a narrow win won’t look great. But it’ll be much easier for the NCAA Tournament committee to overlook when seeding the Big Dance.