Duke overcame a spot of bother to defeat Louisville 83-69 Tuesday night.
Actually, several spots of bother, including another injury to Jeremy Roach.
Roach and Mark Mitchell rejoined the starting lineup and both made immediate contributions. Mitchell was in full attack mode and scored six of Duke’s first eight points.
Kyle Filipowski scored inside to give Duke a 13-12 lead, a lead it would never relinquish. Tyrese Proctor didn’t start but came off the bench to hit a layup to put Duke up 15-12, then a jumper to make it 21-14 and everything seemed to be going according to plan.
Duke reached its biggest lead at 38-20 after Roach knocked down a couple of 3-pointers, a layup and two foul shots, 10 points in less than three minutes.
But Roach apparently rolled an ankle, another in a seemingly endless number of injuries suffered by Duke’s senior captain over the last two seasons.
His loss was quickly felt. Louisville closed the half on a 14-7 run, forcing Jon Scheyer to call a timeout.
It was 45-34 after 20. Roach tried to come back, couldn’t go and took a seat for the duration.
The Cardinals closed to 47-44 as Duke went ice-cold from the field at the same time as the home team got hot behind Tre White and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield.
“I wasn’t really talking offense,” Scheyer said about Louisville’s run. “I thought we let them live in our paint easily. Some of it is because they can get downhill and they’re good players. But we just had to have more resistance. Some of the details went out of the window there early in the second half and I thought we did a good job of just sticking with it.”
And how about Tyrese Proctor? The sophomore Aussie had his best game of the season, a career-best 24 points, along with four assists. A Proctor 3-pointer doubled Duke’s lead to 52-46, another made it 61-53 and another made it 68-60.
“We knew if we had a lead, we had to stretch the lead,” Proctor said, “because when they get down they play even freerer and more confident. When they cut that stretch back and our start of the second half was really poor, we huddled up and we just got on the same page with each other.”
“They hit us with some punches in the second half,” Mitchell added, “and I think we just tried to stay the course. We’ve been in these situations, time after time, last year, this year. I think we used that experience to help us pull through.”
Filipowski (8) and Jared McCain (5) combined for Duke’s last 13 points, as the Blue Devils extended the lead back into double digits, running their ACC record to 5-2, 14-4 overall.
Duke’s interior defense wasn’t always on point and there were too many fouls. But the Blue Devils fixed some of the issues that plagued them Saturday night against Pitt. Led by Filipowski’s 15 rebounds, Duke owned the glass, 43-28. Louisville shot 5 for 17 (29 percent) from beyond the arc. Duke turned it over only nine times and got some solid minutes from Sean Stewart, six rebounds and two blocks in 15 minutes.
We even saw some Filipowski-Mitchell-Stewart lineups down the stretch.
Proctor ended hitting 9 of 16 from the field, 4 of 10 from 3, while Filipowski added 17 points and 5 assists to those 15 rebounds. Mitchell had 20 points and 12 rebounds, shooting 8 for 12.
Huntley-Hatfield led Louisville with 20 points.
“Really good game,” Scheyer summed up. “They [Louisville] make games interesting. Especially the last few games they’ve played, it’s been a possession game. And that final five-to-10 minute stretch, I thought we did a good job of weathering the storm.”
Not the walk in the part it may have looked like at 38-20. But a young team overcoming some adversity has to pay off down the road. One would think. Assuming Duke can get healthy and stay healthy. Which is the second time this week I’ve written that.
But I’ve also written that there’s no such thing as a bad ACC road win. Even Louisville.