West Virginia is here because they can rain threes -- they nailed 11 of them against Arizona on Thursday, including five from Alex Ruoff and four from Darris Nichols. They'll have plenty of opportunities to fire it up from deep against Duke, which will try to force an up-and-down pace. The Blue Devils surrendered eight threes to Belmont in the first round, although it felt like a lot more than that.

For their part, Duke threw up 21 long balls, connecting on just six of them. Against WVU, the Devils will need to be more accurate than that. West Virginia doesn't play at quite the tempo that Duke does, but I can't imagine they will protest too much. They'll take the opportunity to get out in the open floor and do what they do best -- fire up bombs. If Ruoff, Nichols, and De'Sean Butler get hot again, West Virginia has a good chance for the upset.

That is to say nothing of Joe Alexander, who had a relatively ho-hum 14 points (4-of-12) against Zona. It was the second-straight pedestrian game for a guy who, if the Big East season had continued for a week, may have won the league's player of the year award. Against Georgetown in the Mountaineers' Big East tournament loss, Alexander was 5-of-16 for 16 points. The Mountaineers need him to step it up against the second-seeded Blue Devils.

Is Gerald Henderson up for another 21-point effort? He'll need to be unless the Duke threes start dropping.

Duke, predictably, sent a strong fan contingent to D.C. for the game. Sounds as though many of those fans headed over to the Georgetown campus this morning to see their No. 1 Blue Devils' lacrosse team take on a previously-underachieving Georgetown squad. Well, the Hoyas pulled off a big upset, 11-7. Let's see if the Duke hoops team can give its fans at least one win today.

Back with more once we are underway.