Duke enters exams with an 82-55 win over Maryland Eastern Shore Saturday evening. The Blue Devils played without Jeremy Roach and started five freshmen and fought through some fatigue and some turnovers and a feisty UMES squad in running their record to 10-2.
Jon Scheyer said that Roach has been playing through pain since the Purdue game and this seemed like a good time to give him some down time. Roach is expected back for Duke’s next game, at Wake Forest on December 20.
The game was Duke’s 12th since November 7. Seven of those games were against Power-Six teams in a span of three weeks, only Ohio State and Boston College in Cameron.
That’s a lot of games and a lot of traveling and Ryan Young said that accounted for at least some of Duke’s 19 turnovers.
“I think we were sped up somewhat,” Young said. “They kind of played a funky full-court press. We’ve just got to be better at making the right decisions. Got to be smarter in transition and be strong with the ball. We had a lot of guys just kind of tip the ball out of our hands or rip it out. This is towards the end of quite a stretch for us. There was definitely a sense of fatigue. We were sloppier than normal.”
Tyrese Proctor also credited the visitors for speeding Duke up and getting them out of their comfort zone.
“I think their on-ball pressure hurt us a bit.”
But other than that Duke dominated, especially inside against a UMES team with no one taller than 6-7. Duke outrebounded the Hawks 42-20, had seven blocks and limited them to a pair of foul shots.
With Roach out Duke started freshmen Proctor, Mark Mitchell, Dariq Whitehead, Dereck Lively II and Kyle Filipowski. It’s believed to be the first time Duke has ever started five freshmen.
It certainly left Proctor with the lion’s share of the ball-handling responsibilities and the results were mixed; 15 points and two assists but also four turnovers.
“He did a really good job,” Scheyer said. “That was his first time being in that role. The thing with him is he’s really smart, he’s really unselfish and the next step is taking what he knows and talking more. I want him to use his voice because he sees things that others don’t.”
Duke only trailed once, at 2-0. The Blue Devils got some separation when some experience came off the bench. Ryan Young scored inside to make it 8-2. Then Jaylen Blakes hit a 3 and it was 11-2. Duke got its first double-digit lead at 14-4 on a Proctor triple, then Jaden Schutt hit a 3 and it was 23-9, then Kyle Filipowski scored inside and it was 30-9.
Duke led 39-21 at the break, extended the lead to 30 points at 66-36 and never really let the visitors sniff a comeback.
Jaden Schutt may not be a name you’ve seen much of. But Scheyer said the freshman guard from Illinois has earned his chance.
“I’m proud of Jalen Schutt. He’s worked before practice, after practice. It’s a credit to him that the first play he made was an offensive rebound.”
Pretty much everything Schutt did was a career high; 19 minutes, nine points (3-3 on 3s), 5 rebounds and an assist.
And both Lively and Whitehead continue to become the players we all expected them to be before they got hurt. Lively had 8 points, 9 rebounds, 5 blocks, a steal and an assist.
Whitehead played 25 minutes and had 15 points, with 2 assists and 2 steals.
I asked Whitehead if he was all the way back and he said it was close. “After this ten-day stretch, I should be fine. I’ve still got to get past one last step and that’s the mental part of second guessing myself.”
Scheyer said he likes Whitehead’s improvement but wants him to be more aggressive in transition.
Filipowski had 14 points, 7 rebounds and 3 steals but turned it over 4 times.
Freshmen combined for 65 of Duke’s 82 points and 137 of Duke’s 200 player-minutes.
“It was a good win for us,” Scheyer summed up. “It wasn’t the prettiest but over-all I thought our effort was good.”