Duke hoops opens NCAA play with two blow-outs

Tougher tasks await

There’s not a lot to be said about Duke’s 93-49 win over Mount St. Mary’s.

But there are a few things.

Basically what happened and what didn’t happen.

What happened was that Duke cruised to about as stress-free a win as any NCAA Tournament game can be.

One of the things that made it stress free was Cooper Flagg starting, playing 22 effective minutes—14 points, seven rebounds, four assists and two blocks and looking none the worse for it.

That 22 minutes wasn’t because he was coming off an injury. Duke was so dominant that no one played more than Tyrese Proctor’s 24 minutes.

Proctor led everyone with 19 points, hitting 6 of 8 from beyond the arc.

Who knew Proctor was going to morph into Trajan Langdon?

No fewer than 10 Blue Devils played at least 11 minutes. A dozen Devils scored, Caleb Foster (12) and Khaman Maluach (11) joining Proctor and Flagg in double figures.

What didn’t happen is, well see the above. Stress free.

An inevitable blow-out? Sure. In hindsight.

But I’ll never forget sitting in an almost empty Greensboro Coliseum in 1986, a noon tipoff on a Thursday afternoon as top-ranked Duke squared off against Mississippi Valley State.

If you haven’t heard the story, here’s the condensed version. MVSU finished third in the SWAC regular season but won the tournament. Coached by the colorful Lafayette Stribling, the Delta Devils forced 23 Duke turnovers, led by seven points in the second half and scared the absolute dickens out out of Duke; Johnny Dawkins’ 27 points kept Duke in the game until the rest of the team woke up.

Duke was seeded number one in 1994 when they beat Texas Southern 82-70. Top-seeded Duke trailed Delaware State much of the first half before winning 57-46.

We all know about Duke-Lehigh (2 v. 15) and Mercer (3. v14).

But that didn’t happen today in Raleigh and it might seem inevitable but it wasn’t and that’s a good thing because this team is focused, poised and possessed of a killer instinct that not every talented Duke team has had.

Details?

It was 4-0. 7-2, 13-2 before the first media timeout. 24-12, 38-18, 54-28 at the half. No matter what Duke tried, no matter what lineup Jon Scheyer put out there, it worked. MSM was helpless.

The second half was more of the same. Walk-on Neal Begovich played six minutes for crying out loud, hitting a triple, the second of his college career, his first in a Duke uniform.

The people’s choice finished it off with a floater over a taller defender.

Then again almost every college basketball player is taller than Spencer Hubbard.

Duke did well on the stat sheet, 50% from the field, 38% from beyond the arc, holding MSM to 5 for 27 (18.5%) on 3s.

Impressive but what you’d expect. What you wouldn’t expect is 21 Duke assists, two Duke turnovers. Two. As in your total number of thumbs.

That’s the best assist-to-turnover ratio in school history.

Scheyer called Duke’s performance “workmanlike,” while adding that two turnovers is “pretty good.”

Tough crowd.

To be fair, Scheyer was a bit more complimentary later in his presser: “incredibly mature,” “proud of our performance,” that sort of thing.

Scheyer also said that Flagg could have played more had the need been there.

Remember Proctor’s last NCAA Tournament game was that scoreless game against NC State in last year’s Elite Eight.

“As soon as that game ended it [getting back] was on my mind. It’s the reason I came back. I think it did fuel me. It fueled the whole team as a whole. First meeting of the year we talked about it.”

Mason Gillis’ last tournament experience was as a member of Purdue’s team, losing to Connecticut in the title game.

It was everyone’s else’s debut and that has to be a good thing.

Because a much tougher test awaits Sunday. We’ll hear all about Jeremy Roach before then and Baylor super-freshman, V.J. Edgecombe, a priority Duke target who spurned the Blue Devils. And Jon Scheyer’s 20 points when Duke beat Baylor in the 2010 Elite Eight.

All useful story lines. Color me most worried about Baylor’s rebounding. Former Miami star Norchad Omier is a load on the glass and Duke’s bigs best bring their A game.

Twenty-five miles away and several hours later the Duke women’s team joined the men’s in the winner’s bracket with an 86-25 win over Lehigh. No C.J. McCollum references here.

It did take Duke some time to get its offense going. Remember Duke hasn’t played in almost two weeks. Lehigh didn’t score for the first five minutes but Duke led only 13-8 after one period.

Once Duke found its offensive mojo, it was all over, post baskets, transition baskets and finally 3-pointers.

And the defense. Always the defense. Lehigh’s leading scorer, Maddie Albright, came into the game averaging 16 points per game. She didn’t score until the final minutes of the game; she ended with four.

Of course no one else scored much either. Lehigh shot 19.6% from the field.

No, that’s not a typo. They were 2 for 15 from beyond the arc. That was supposed to have been their strength. They turned it over 30 times and didn’t have a single double-figure scorer.

Duke had 10 players score; sound familiar? Oluchi Okananwa led everyone with 15 points, followed by Delaney Thomas and Toby Fournier, with 11 each. Sophomore Louann Battiston added eight points in the final minutes, one more than her entire season total going into the game.

Duke dominated the glass, 48-27. I suspect Lawson might focus on Duke’s 16 turnovers if she’s turning over a rock for a teachable moment. But how much angst can you have over a 61-point win?

Again, a familiar face in the round of 32. Oregon mildly upset Vanderbilt (10 seed v. seven seed) in what we can hope was a physically and menatally exhausting overtime.

Oregon’s lineup includes former UNC star Deja Kelly, a polarizing player with a shoot-em-into-the-game, shoot-em-out-of-the-game style and a personality not designed to win friends and influence people.

I have a feeling Duke fans recall her.

Oregon only scores 68 points per game so this one should come down to whether Duke can be reasonably effective on the offensive end.

More later.