Duke men's hoops easily handles Seattle

But a lot to work on.

I asked Sion James to evaluate Duke’s 70-48 win over Seattle Friday night.

“We won. Wasn’t great. You know, sometimes after a win, you feel really, really good. I’m not going to say we feel horrible because winning in college basketball is a hard thing to do. But we know that we weren’t at our best today. We had stretches where we showed how good we are and can be. But stretches don’t win you a championship.”

Hard to disagree with that assessment. I realize that kvetching about a 22-point win can be seen as the height of entitlement.

But this is Duke.

And there were spans when Duke was pretty good.

But spans when Duke wasn’t. It was the kind of game in which Cooper Flagg could miss a wide-open dunk, the kind of game when Duke scored 10 points in the first nine minutes, the kind of game where Duke sent an over-matched team that trailed the final 34 minutes to the foul line a jaw-dropping 31 times.

Seattle made 24 of those freebies, exactly half of their points.

Of course, they also hit 6 of 28 shots from inside the arc, 4 of 19 from 3-point land. And Duke forced 16 turnovers. So, Duke’s defense was pretty good when they weren’t sending Seattle to the foul line.

But they kept sending them to the foul line.

“We weren’t sharp enough on the defensive end,” James said. “It’s hard to beat a team when you’re giving them half of their points from the foul line.”

“I thought we let them get into the lane too many times,” Kon Knueppel added.

Now, this could be one of those human-nature games Mike Krzyzewski always talked about. Or maybe fatigue, mental or physical or both. Sandwiched between two high-profile games, Thanksgiving weekend, a largely empty campus, could explain Duke’s malaise. Of course, the players denied all of this, not that they would likely admit to the media that they were tired.

“I was ready to go,” Knueppel said and he actually was. He scored eight of Duke’s first 15 points, keying the Devils to a 15-10 lead.

“I thought we were soft in the first half,” Jon Scheyer said. “They were more physical than us on defense.”

The Blue Devils put together one of their runs, a Tyrese Proctor triple sparking a 9-2 lead that gave Duke its first double-digit lead, at 26-16.

The half ended with Duke up 37-25. The Blue Devils attempted 27 shots in the first half and 20 of them were 3-pointers; Duke made six.

“I thought we got some open looks,” Knueppel said. “But there were some we didn’t need to take. It wasn’t the cleanest offensive game for us.”

Duke’s best stretch was the first 10:33 of the second half. Flagg assisted three times in the first 3:27, to Caleb Foster, then Khaman Maluach inside, then a Tyrese Proctor 3-pointer that made it 46-25.

The run reached 16-0, spanning both halves. Duke’s biggest lead was 29, at 58-29.

“I thought we came out with great energy,” Scheyer said, “really guarded the ball.”

Seattle shot 4 for 24 in the second half from the field but 12 for 16 from the line.

Scheyer did experiment with a lot of lineup combinations and said he’s nowhere close to finalizing a rotation. Ten players played at least 11:37, with Darren Harris playing 7:41.

Proctor led Duke with 13 points. Knueppel was Duke’s only other double-figure scorer, with 11 points. Flagg scored all nine of his points in the first half but added nine rebounds and seven assists. Maluach and Isaiah Evans also tallied nine points.

Scheyer said Duke needed practice time and will practice Monday and Tuesday. He joked that Duke could practice all day Wednesday, with the 9:15 tip-off for the Auburn game.

“I wasn’t really happy with much tonight,” Scheyer summed up. “I thought we rushed some shots, too many turnovers. We need to finish stronger, drive stronger, make extra passes.”