Live Blog: Critics will have a field day with this tournament

4:26 p.m. Critics will have a field day with this tournament - Duke barely got past Belmont and then got stomped by West Virginia in the second half of their second round game. All of those that said Duke wouldn't be able to beat anyone in the Big Dance if they weren't hitting their outside shots feel pretty good about that theory right now.

Duke will look to next year and wonder what is going to chance. They still won't have a big man in the middle to rely on (unless Brian Zoubek improves a thousand fold) and there isn't much coming in recruit-wise. Though you wouldn't know it by watching the last two games, the loss of Nelson will mean a lot, because he gives a team that's light on rebounding some help from the guard position.

Duke has hit a few threes here, but the phrase too little too late comes to mind. West Virginia wins 73-67.

4:21 p.m. Mazzulla is the player of the game - Alexander has been very good with a double-double of his own, but nobody has been as critical as the little guy. 11 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists for the smallest guy on the court - incredible effort for that kid.

4:15 p.m. Numbers for thought - I was going to say that Duke needs to get the lead down to three before the under four timeout to have a chance, but I was too busy writing about West Virginia running the Devils out of the gym. We've now reached the under four and the lead is 11. In other words...end of story.

Check out these numbers for Duke:

31.8% from the field, 11;1% from three, 6 assists and 12 turnovers.

4:14 p.m. West Virginia throwing daggers -  WVU's Rouff hit a huge three. Mountaineer fans can start looking for cheap plane fares to Phoenix. West Virginia is hitting from distance while Duke has missed their last 16. Three offensive rebounds on the same possession for West Virginia, then ending it with a layin is as heartbreaking as it gets. Duke has absolutely collapsed in the second half, they've been outscored by 16 to this point, and it looks like it's getting worse.

4:03 p.m. Duke With Only 12 Points In The Second Half - enough said - high marks for WVU's defense.Duke shooting less than 35% for the game. Ouch.

3:53 p.m. Duke Defense Has No Answers - Duke has been able to score the last few possessions, but the stops that were there in the first half are nowhere to be seen in the second. DeMarcus Nelson and Lance Thomas are picking up lazy fouls and West Virginia is doing a nice job of hitting the free throws. You don't get the sense that Duke will be able to suddenly hit threes, so if they are to make any kind of comeback it'll likely come from forcing turnovers and a steady diet of Gerald Henderson on the offense end.

If there has been a worse effort in an NCAA Tournament by a first-team all-conference player than the one Duke has gotten from DeMarcus Nelson, I would love to know about it. He's either sick or picked a bad time to go into his worst slump of the season.

3:47 p.m. 47-40 WVU - WVU just played zone for the first time all game and Duke looked as confused as you would imagine they would be. Two of the Mountaineers have four fouls, but it may not matter if Duke doesn't keep themselves in the game.

3:38 p.m. Alexander Taking Over, Duke Rattled - Singler picks up two bad fouls - he has four now and will have to sit for a while. Alexander has blocks on consecutive possessions sandwiched around a three pointer. The Devils have missed three of four free throws and just allowed an offensive rebound to Ruoff that can only be blamed on a terrible box out by Nolan Smith on the shooter.

3:34 p.m. Crowd Awake and Rooting For The Mountaineers - As is always the case in the NCAA Tournament, the crowd gets behind whoever isn't Duke. The Devils have given them a reason to get loud as their defense has suffered a momentary lapse.

3:32 p.m. Huge 3 for Ruoff - As the 35 second shot clock buzzer sounded - ties the game at 37. The two teams are even from the three point line and on the scoreboard.

3:28 p.m. WVU Closes to Within 3 - Getting to the foul line is only good if you make the freebies. Duke has hit 13 of their first 14. West Virgnia has closed the gap thanks to their first three of the game, coming after a Gerald Henderson airballed three point attempt. The two teams are a combined 3-18 from behind the line. DeMarcus Nelson continues to look awful - I think the guy is great, and he's been a great leader for the team this year, but he's getting close to the can't buy a bucket mark...layups, threes, floaters, all coming up short.

3:02 p.m. Duke Up Five At Half - the story of the game so far is Duke's ability to defend on the perimeter. WVU was 11-19 from three against Arizona, they are 0-6 through twenty minutes from beyond the stripe today. Duke's offense still looks stagnant. Demarcus Nelson still only has 6 points in 60 minutes thus far in the tournament, and aside from Paulus going 2-4 from behind the stripe, the rest of the Devils are 0-5 combined. They may be up five at the half, but you get the feeling that someone other than Paulus will have to hit a three.

Jon Scheyer  and Paulus lead the Devils with eight points a piece

Joe Alexander had 11 points and five boards in the first twenty minutes, but he needed 13 shots to get there. As long as the Devils rebound, they'll take that.

Joe Mazzulla was the X-factor for West Virginia that kept them in the game - he was forced into playing 14 minutes because of some early foul trouble, and answered with four points, three rebounds and three assists.

2:50 p.m. McClure giving good minutes - The guys isn't an offensive threat - not in the least, but he's perhaps Duke's most versatile defender in terms of being able to guard a big or a small, and he rebounds, unlike Zoubke, like a guy who's five inches taller than himself (three boards in six minutes).

2: 43 p.m. 24-19 Devils - The answer to the question posed below about how Zoubek was an AA, is that I have no idea. As a seven-footer, he has the uncanny ability to play like he's 6-5 and you can't fit a piece of paper under his shoes when he jumps. Duke seems hell-bent on getting something out of the kid, and maybe their confidence in him will pay off, but I haven't seen anything yet to convince me.

If Taylor King can perfect the pump-fake-one-dribble jump shot, he'll be a much better player - for now though he takes too many of those bombs that we just saw him miss. I don't care how good of a shooter you are, shooting from 35 feet away is low percentage.

2:37 p.m. Joe Alexander showing a nice all-court game - The best player for West Virgnia is showing why he's earned that moniker. He's taken several Devils off the dribble from the perimeter, shown creativity in the post and proven he can shoot off both shoulders.

2:31 p.m. Duke has more energy -Though Duke already has 6 turnovers, they've forced six as well. Duke has also been aggressvely attacking the rim, which, along with the refs obsession with blowing the whistle, has allowed them to get West Virginia in some early foul trouble. Duke seems to have much more energy this game - might be because some guys that were under the weather are feeling better, or just the pressure being lifted off of them after finally winning a tournament game in what seemed like forever (I know it was only one year, but it seemed longer than that didn't it?)

2:26 p.m. - Refs have taken over. There is no flow to this game because the refs can't stand to let the action continue for more than 15 seconds. There have been 11 fouls called in 8 minutes.

2:21 p.m. Huggy Bear Gets T'd Up - During a timeout - Zoubek took all of three seconds to turn the ball over via a traveling violation...I won't say anything else about that...

2:18 p.m. Duke On 10-0 Run - Paulus with two big threes, I think he hit one from Durham, and Gerald Henderson picking up where he left off with a nice alley-oop finish off a Paulus pass. The Devils look much better so far, shooting better from the perimeter and playing better defense. They're forcing WVU to start their offense from 5-7 feet beyond the three-point line, critical for a team that does not like to play post defense. 10-4 Devils.

2:12 p.m. Duke Disjointed Early -Two possessions, two turnovers for Duke. Singler steps out of bounds and Nelson travels - Duke needs more from their captain than they got from him against Belmont.

1:47 p.m. - About 20 minutes before Duke takes their shot at the Sweet 16 this afternoon, and the Devils will have to fight off more than the West Virginia Mountaineers to do it. As Ken Medlin reported yesterday from Washington D.C., Coach K is battling the flu, running a 104 degree fever at times. Kyle Singler and DeMarcus Nelson have also been treated. Duke needs to play better defense than they did in the first round against Belmont if they are to have any shot of advancing.

WVU has four starters who average double figures, with do-everything sophomore Joe Alexander leading the way at almost 17ppg.Three of those players, Alex Ruoff, Da'Sean Butler, and Alexander played at least 37 minutes in the Mountaineers' first round win over Arizona. West Virginia doesn't get much from their bench, only seven points against the Wildcats, so if Duke is healthy enough to run and pressure like they can, they may be able to wear down the regulars and expose a bench that doesn't score much.

Gerald Henderson (21 pts, 7rebs, 5 steals) played his best game in recent memory and it was still barely enough for Duke to claw past Belmont. The Blue Devils have been in a shooting clump for the better part of a month (6-21 from three-point range in round one) - their season will end today if that slump continues.