Don’t look now but Duke seems to be on a bit of a roll.
And that Kyle Filipowski slump sure didn’t last that long. Try 26 points on 11 for 12 shooting, 4 for 4 from beyond the arc.
Duke jumped on Pitt early Tuesday night and never really let up, cruising to a 75-53 win over Jeff Capel’s over-matched Panthers.
The win is Duke’s seventh straight and moves their record to 12-3 overall, 3-1 in the ACC, two wins on a two-game road trip.
Duke never trailed. Filipowski, Jared McCain, then Filipowski again scored inside to put Duke up 6-2, then a barrage of 3-pointers extended the lead, Jeremy Roach, Tyrese Proctor, McCain and it was 15-7.
The home team never got anything going on offense. Hopefully, Duke’s defense is that good as Pitt ended up shooting around 33 percent on two-pointers and three-pointers.
But the real eye-opener came on the boards. Pitt entered the game as one of the nation’s best rebounding teams. But Duke mauled them on the glass to the tune of 43 rebounds to 26.
“Hunger,” Jon Scheyer summed up. “Really emphasizing that it hasn’t been a strong suit for us overall. Defensive rebounding we’ve done okay, but not to the level that we’d like. We talk about gang-rebounding all the time – five guys on the boards, and I thought it was the best game we’ve had of doing that.”
Filipowski had 10 boards to go along with those 26 points. And Ryan Young grabbed five off the bench. But it was Duke’s perimeter players-McCain (5 rebounds), Proctor (6), Caleb Foster (2) and Roach (2) who seemed to grab every loose ball.
Unable to make a shot, unable to get stops in the first half, unable to impose its will on the boards, Pitt just didn’t have many options. Duke got its first double-digit lead at 19-9 less than eight minutes into the game on a Filipowski layup. The lead hit 20 at 36-16 when Filipowski nailed a triple.
It was 48-23 at the half after Filipowski knocked down his third 3-pointer, to give him 17 points at the half.
Scheyer praised Filipowski’s versatility.
.”He’s a guy, I don’t know if there’s really anybody like him in the country in transition. He can run to the block and post up early, he can trail and drive, he can trail and shoot 3s, he can set early ball-screens. He can do so much.”
Filipowski credited his teammates.
“Just having that energy as a team, feeding off of my teammate’s energy, the ball keeps falling for me and I was getting in the right spots because of them as well. It was just a great night on the offensive end because of how we played together.”
Duke shot 60 percent from the field in the first half and hit nine 3-pointers.
Duke probably could have scored 90 had they been so inclined. I’m sure Scheyer didn’t want to embarrass Jeff Capel. The second half was about game management.
The lead peaked at 34 points, 62-28 and if you had that on your bingo card, go to the head of the class. We got to see some Sean Stewart (4 points, 4 rebounds, 1 block) and T.J. Power (3 points, 1 rebound). McCain joined Filipowski in double figures with 12 points, Proctor overcame a poor shooting performance with six rebounds and five assists and Duke has a few days of rest before a rematch with Georgia Tech Saturday afternoon.
Just one game in a long season. But Duke looked like the team we expected to see back in November.
“I thought our defense was really good,” Scheyer summed up, “probably the best we’ve played on that end. We defended, we rebounded and then for [Kyle Filipowski] to play that way, he’s a difference maker. When he plays that way for our team, it totally changes the dynamic of our offense and our defense.”
Always a fan of "He's a guy" coachspeak! 🤠
Great win! Let’s keep it going against Tech on Saturday!