Duke mauls Georgia Tech in Atlanta
86-43 win second-biggest Duke margin of victory ever in ACC road game
Maybe Duke is figuring it out. Maybe the kids are growing up. Maybe Duke exorcised some road demons. Maybe Georgia Tech really is that bad. Maybe all of the above.
But for 40 minutes of game time--two hours of real time--Duke looked like Duke, confident, poised, ruthless even.
Jeremy Roach hit a couple of 3s in the first couple of minutes and Duke never looked back, pounding Georgia Tech 86-43 Saturday afternoon at McCamish Pavilion.
The win moved Duke to 6-4 in the ACC, 15-5 overall, while dropping the Jackets to 1-10, 8-13.
The 43-point margin of victory is the second-biggest Duke margin of victory in an ACC road game, trailing only a 100-54 win at Virginia in 1999.
After those two Roach triples Dereck Lively II and Kyle Filipowski knocked down 3s. It was Lively’s first make from beyond the arc.
The Filipowski bomb put Duke up 16-7. But the home team hung tough for awhile. Rodney Howard made some plays inside, Tech got some transition buckets and Tristan Maxwell hit a 3 and it was 22-16 Duke at the midpoint of the opening half and then Deivon Smith hit another 3 and it was 30-23 with just over four minutes left.
Danger zone? A seven-point lead for a young team that has struggled on the road. Could get hairy.
Nope. Duke responded with a 13-2 run closing out the half and took a 43-25 lead into halftime. At 30-23 Ryan Young scored inside off a second chance, then assisted Filipowski on a dunk and then scored inside with his left hand and the threat was over.
Tech coach Josh Pastner cited this span as the point where the game got away from his team.
“We just couldn’t score,” Pastner said. “I thought we were really small.”
Duke didn’t exactly let up after intermission. Lively and Filipowski got blocks on Tech’s first two possessions of the second half and Filipowski and Mark Mitchell scored inside and Pastner called time barely a minute into the second half in a hopeless attempt to plug the widening leak.
To no avail. The lead hit 31 at 59-28 on Roach’s third 3-pointer, then 62-28 on his fourth, then 40 points on a Jaylen Blakes layup, by which time both teams had emptied their benches.
All 12 of Roach’s points came on 3-pointers.
It’s hard to find anything to quibble about, let alone actually criticize. Duke did miss six of 15 free throws but most of those misses came from bench players. Duke outrebounded Tech 45-22, assisted on 24 of 34 made field goals, while limiting turnovers to 9. Mitchell (11), Young (10), and Jake Grandison (10) joined Filipowski and Roach in double figures.
Duke hit 56 percent from the field and 39 percent (9-23) on 3s, while holding Tech to 31 percent from the field.
“Really just playing our defense,” Roach said. “We knew they liked to do that motion, get the ball to the elbow, do a lot of split actions, stuff like that. Just doing our principles, stuff that we work on every day in practice, and it translated into the game.”
Duke had a big size advantage and maximized it. Lively got the start over Young and made the most of it, 9 points, 10 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 assists and a steal.
“For Dereck, we just feel like it’s a time where he’s really, it’s like he’s on a launching pad right now,” Scheyer said. “And he’s got a chance to take off and today was a start of it.”
Filipowski was, well Filipowski, 16 points and 7 rebounds despite sitting out much of the second half; he played only 27 minutes; no Blue Devil played more than 28.
“They just kicked our rear end,” Pastner said. “Their size was overwhelming for us.”
But it was Tyrese Proctor’s performance that stood out to me. I’ve wondered out loud if Duke had a point guard this season.
Well, Proctor had eight assists and no turnovers. It’s hard to be more point-guardie than that. Proctor has had at least five assists in three of Duke’s last five games.
Scheyer sure noticed.
“Talking about getting better, Tyrese from the start of the season to now has just grown tremendously. And we’re at our best when Tyrese is doing this. And we have weapons on the floor and I thought he put them in a great position to be really successful. So what he’s done, distributing the ball, he competes and defends all the time, that’s an added element for us that’s made us a lot better.”
Roach also shared some thoughts on Duke’s passing.
“When that ball’s popping and everybody is touching it, then everybody feels like they’re in the game and everybody feels like they can make a shot. So, if we get first and second drive and kicks, stuff like that, and guys are ready for open kicks and they’re ready to shoot the ball, it’s fun playing like that. And when you’re making shots and winning like this, it’s very fun.”
Duke has a chance to continue having fun this Tuesday as suddenly struggling Wake Forest comes to Cameron. A chance for some payback perhaps but more importantly a big game in a stretch of big games that will go a long way towards determining Duke’s March plans.