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Duke has never seen anything like Alabama.
That is not a commentary on this outstanding collection of young Blue Devils. It is a statement on this one-of-a-kind Crimson Tide.
No one has seen anything like this Alabama team because no one has done anything like this Alabama team did Thursday night in the Sweet 16.
No one had ever taken as many as 51 3-point shots in an NCAA Tournament game, and no one had ever made as many as 25 treys in a March Madness encounter. Alabama did both.
Do the math, and be even more amazed.
Alabama didn't make a 3-pointer for the first 3:12 or the last 4:48 of the first half. In the 12 minutes in between, the Tide made 12. That's an average of a trey a minute.
Alabama didn't strike from deep for the first 1:58 of the second half or the last 13 seconds of the game. In between, the Tide made 13 treys in 17:49, a slightly slower pace but still an extended and exceptional assault.
Take away the brief blanks at the beginning and end of each half, and Alabama made its 25 3-pointers in 29 minutes and 49 seconds of game time. That is sniper-level marksmanship.
It led to an extremely rare scoreboard tsunami. No one had scored as many as 113 points in an NCAA Tournament game since North Carolina hung that number on Mount St. Mary's in the first round in 2008. No one had scored more points in the Big Dance since UNLV dropped 131 on Loyola Marymount in the 1990 Elite Eight.
Cue the coincidence, silence the critics and focus on the numbers. They suggest the Crimson Tide is fully capable of teaching the Dookies to behave, too.
There is no exact advanced metric to measure the last time Duke was in the house to witness a similar explosion not detonated by the Blue Devils themselves. One such occasion was the 1990 national championship game in which UNLV undressed Duke 103-73.
It remains the most points scored in the title game and the largest margin of victory there. Note to fabulous Duke freshman Cooper Flagg: Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley were sophomores powerless to slow down the Runnin' Rebels.
That UNLV team averaged 93.5 points a game. This Alabama team averages 91.4. That Duke team gave up 90 points or more only four times before meeting UNLV and two of those shootouts came in overtime. This Duke team has surrendered 90 or more points only once - against Arizona in its 100-93 Sweet 16 victory Thursday night.
So yes, this Duke team can win a pinball game. This Duke team also plays defense, unlike BYU, which inexplicably kept ducking under screens and found itself unable or unwilling to run Alabama off the 3-point line.
About that.
The regional final will be the ninth game this season in which Alabama has faced a team ranked in KenPom's top 11 in defensive efficiency. The Blue Devils are No. 5.
How did Alabama fare against some of the nation's best defensive teams? In eight games against No. 1 Houston, No. 3 Tennessee, No. 7 Saint Mary's, No. 8 Texas A&M, No. 9 Florida and No. 11 Auburn, the Tide reached at least 80 points seven times, 90 points three times and averaged 86.1 points.
Alabama split those eight games on the scoreboard because Florida and Auburn are elite on offense, too, and Tennessee isn't far behind.
Without adjusting for its anemic schedule, Duke's defense has been so good that it's allowed 75 points or more only six times all season. But in those games, the Blue Devils are 3-3. The losses: Kentucky (77-72), Kansas (75-72) and Clemson (77-71).
That's good news for Alabama, which has failed to reach 75 points only twice: in a 72-64 win over McNeese State and a 74-64 loss to Ole Miss.
So 75 becomes Alabama's magic number. Reach it or exceed it, which this team typically does with ease, and this game becomes a coin flip that Mark Sears and his posse are fully equipped to flip in their favor over the sport's fastest 40 minutes.
There's another metric that should give Alabama fans hope. Adjusting for Duke's awful schedule, the average adjusted offensive efficiency of its opponents is 49. The average adjusted defensive efficiency of Alabama's opponents is 3.
On the flip side, the average adjusted defensive efficiency of Duke's opponents is 62. The average adjusted offensive efficiency of Alabama's opponents is 1. As in No. 1 in the country.
Translation: This Alabama team has seen teams that play elite offense and defense up close and personal for months. This Duke team hasn't seen anything like this Alabama team.
That doesn't guarantee an Alabama victory, but if this Duke team sees an Alabama team anything like the one that shot the lights out in the Sweet 16, look out. The Tide will roll on to the Final Four.
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