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• Rebounding has been a weakness for Duke all year, and the Great Danes, not a height-gifted team, pulled down 10 offensive rebounds with six coming from players 6-foot-6 or shorter. Albany collected 30.3 percent of its available offensive rebounds, compared to Duke’s 28.3 percent.
“On the defensive side,” Rasheed Sulaimon said, listing what Duke could do better, “A lot more talk and just finishing out the possession, mainly, with the rebound. There were a lot of loose balls that I think we could have gotten that, if we would have gotten, would have led to a fast-break and we could have sealed the game a little bit earlier.”
• The NCAA official scorekeeper gave Duke guard Quinn Cook one more assist than he earned on the floor. It was Curry that had the dish to Mason Plumlee with 2:04 left in the game, but the book credited it to Cook.
• Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski was asked after the game if he watched Harvard, a No. 14 seed, upset No. 3 New Mexico for the school’s first NCAA tournament win. The Crimson is coached by former Duke player and assistant Tommy Amaker.
“Yeah, I watched, and then – I didn’t fall asleep while they were playing, I fell asleep at halftime, so don’t let Amaker think that I was letting him down,” Krzyzewski said. “And when I woke up they had the lead, and then I stayed up. I thought it was an unbelievably well played game by both teams.
“You know, Tommy, he and Johnny (Dawkins) and (Mark) Alarie and (Jay) Bilas, (David) Henderson, they all started this stuff. So Tommy is like a son to me and I’m ecstatic for him, really. He’s done that with losing his two best players this year (who left amid an academic scandal). I’m not going to want to schedule them next year. They’ve got everybody back and those two guys.”
