Duke bludgeons Wofford

Terriers shoot 5 for 33 from beyond arc in 86-35 Duke win

A 3-point shooting contest broke out Saturday afternoon at Cameron.

Duke won. Big. Really, really big.

The final was Duke 86, Wofford 35. Wofford attempted 33 3-pointers. They made five. As in the fingers on one hand. That five.

They attempted 24 shots instead the arc.

Duke was 16 for 38 from downtown, 14 for 24 on two-pointers.

That’s right. The two teams combined for 71 attempted 3-pointers, 48 two-pointers.

That’s college basketball, 2024-’25.

That wasn’t the only storyline, of course. Situated on the schedule between Kentucky and Arizona, this could have been a trap game.

Maliq Brown says that was never going to happen.

“We wanted to respond back. Obviously a tough loss against Kentucky. We put that behind us and just knew that we had to pay attention to everything going forward and realizing that every game matters.”

Wofford scored first, Kyler Filewich inside against Khaman Maluach.

Filewich was Wofford’s one bright spot. The 6-9 senior from Manitoba never backed down from Duke’s length. He hit six of nine from the field, all close in, ending with 12 points, nine rebounds and four of Wofford’s nine assists.

The rest of the team hit eight of 48 from the field. That’s 16.6%. Dillon Bailey was one for 12, Jackson Sivills one for 10.

They also had 19 turnovers, including a handful of shot-clock violations.

“When we get that, it gives us a lot of energy,” Brown says.

Wofford’s lead was short-lived. Tyrese Proctor hit a triple, then Kon Knueppel, then Proctor again and it was 9-2 and the rout was on.

Another storyline concerns Duke’s medical team. Sion James was the first Devil off the bench, just days after suffering a shoulder injury that many of us feared might sideline him for weeks, maybe longer.

James says he’s still not 100%.

“Got the green light earlier this week. Glad I was able to play.”

“It starts with Sion,” Scheyer says. “He was going to do anything he could to be able to play. He didn’t practice both days. He had a workout with Coach Carrawell yesterday just to get some contact. Our medical team did a great job to get imageing right away just to make sure everything was structurally sound, which it was. So, it became all about his pain tolerance. I just think that’s character. He wanted to play.”

James ended with 5 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals.

A few minutes later Patrick Ngongba checked in. The 6-11 freshman has been bothered by foot problems for several years and this was his first appearance of the season.

“Yesterday they told me I was probably going to get in. I felt great. My foot’s really good. I just need to get into better shape.”

“Our medical team has done an incredible job with him,” Scheyer added. “It would have been very easy to try to rush him and get him back as soon as possible. But he’s been through a lot in high school, so we want to get him out there pain free and have him build up. There’s going to be some rust he’s going to have to work through.”

While all this was going on, Duke was building its lead, 19-5, 36-7 after a 17-0 run that held the visitors scoreless for over six minutes.

It was 51-14 at intermission.

Duke did all this was getting five points from Cooper Flagg in the first half, three from Knueppel.

Both ended with eight points.

Proctor had a dozen for Duke, while Wofford shot 20% from the field (6-30).

The second half was about game management and lineup experimentation. Freshman Isaiah Evans gave Duke 14 points in 12 minutes, Ngonbga ended with six rebounds to go along with two points.

Proctor led Duke with 15 points, while Caleb Foster added 13 points, Maluach 11. Flagg had 8 points, 6 assists, 9 rebounds, 3 steals and 2 blocks.

Filewich and Corey Tripp led Wofford with a dozen points each. No one else had more than three.

“That was our focus,” James said. “We knew we wanted to get better on defense. We knew we had a chance. We cleaned up the glass for the most part. To hold a team to 35 points, you must be doing something good.”

Duke assisted on 24 of their 30 made field goals and several of the six that weren’t assisted were offensive rebounds, a stark contrast to the stagnant offense down the stretch against Kentucky.

“We have an extremely talented team,” Flagg said “so we’re doing ourselves and each one of us a disservice if we’re not swinging the ball and making an extra pass. So, we need to find the right shot and just trust in each other, which I think we will do. It got a little sticky in our game against Kentucky, so just working on flowing a little bit better and making the best pass.”

“A great bounce-back game,” Scheyer said. “Really proud of the way we shared the ball today, just the effort. We talked a lot about the process of the season, win or lose, how you respond, how you come back the next game.”