NEWARK – The Prudential Center is 475 miles north of Cameron Indoor Stadium, but it sure seemed like home for the Duke basketball team in Saturday’s NCAA Tournament East Regional final.
With the raucous crowd of 18,600 a sea of blue, the top-seeded Blue Devils rolled past second-seeded Alabama 85-65 to advance to their 18th Final Four and first since 2022.
Balance was the buzzword for Duke (35-3), which spread around the scoring and held Alabama (28-9) to 25 percent shooting from 3-point range after the Tide rained 26 triples on BYU in Thursday’s Sweet 16 contest.
FIVE TAKEAWAYS
1. A big winner? The Prudential Center
Hosting the East Regional for the first time since 2011, “The Rock” met the moment. Over two nights of record attendance for the arena – 18,600-plus on Thursday and Saturday – the building proved worthy of a big-stage event yet again, both in atmosphere and functionality. A big assist to Seton Hall, whose athletic department staffers handled much of the logistics.
Prediction: Newark won’t have to wait 14 years for the next regional.
2. Cameron North for a day
At this stage of the tournament, surviving teams tend to have huge fan contingents at their games regardless of geography. For example: Princeton boasted at least 5,000 supporters in Louisville for the South Regional semifinals in 2023. Alabama, apparently, is an exception. The Prudential Center was 90 percent Duke fans, with just two sections of Bama faithful. Perhaps they were getting ready for the spring football game?
The end result: This was Cameron North for a day, and the loudest the Rock has been for a college basketball game since Seton Hall edged Villanova in a win-and-in season finale in 2019.
3. Big Cliff’s collegiate finale
Nine years after he came to America from Nigeria at age 14, Cliff Omoruyi’s college hoops career came to a close one game short of the Final Four. After four standout years at Roselle Catholic and four more at Rutgers, the 6-foot-11 postgrad center had an outstanding NCAA Tournament until Saturday, when he logged just 13 minutes and finished with 4 points, 2 rebounds and 2 blocks for Alabama.
As the Tide's starting postman this season Omoruyi averaged 8.0 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.1 blocks, shooting 74 percent from the field and 71 percent from the free-throw line. Almost all of his shots came at point-blank range – unlike his final two years at Rutgers when he tried to expand his game.
Omoruyi’s final Big Dance record is 4-3, going 1-2 with Rutgers and 3-1 with Alabama.
He’ll enter the NBA Draft ...
