Spoiler alert. This is not going to be a long rumination.
Duke made the 25-mile trip to PNC Arena and the NC State Wolfpack Wednesday night and apparently forgot its basketball game. Duke was sloppy, tentative, unprepared, out-hustled, out-toughed. Name any one of the basketball arts and Duke did not do it well. Duke did not defend well, rebound well, pass well, shoot well and some other stuff I’m sure I’ve forgotten.
That’s how you lose 84-60 after falling behind 15-0, then 22-4.
The closest thing Duke came to a run came when Dariq Whitehead hit a couple of 3s, Duke forced some turnovers and Duke had the ball in transition down 26-14.
A glimmer of hope?
Kyle Filipowski had an open 3 from the corner.
He missed.
State closed out the half with an 18-8 run, scoring the half’s final five points.
“Obviously, not a good night for us,” Jon Scheyer said. “They outplayed us in every facet. Their guards controlled the game. We knew they would be a really hungry team coming off a couple of tough losses.”
Why was Duke not able to match that hunger?
The word “timid” was thrown around in the Duke locker room.
Scheyer’s thoughts?
“You have a night like this and it’s not okay. For us to learn from it, we have to and grown and change. I take responsibility for that as a coach. Disappointing. It’s a disappointing night.”
Scheyer said Duke wasn’t strong enough, didn’t stick together during tough times, lacked poise, “too many empty possessions.”
You get the drift.
They played the second half because they had to. If this were a boxing match it would have been stopped at halftime.
Duke perked up offensively after intermission, scoring 38 points. But they never came close to putting together enough defensive stops to put any game pressure on the Wolfpack. I wasn’t surprised that State’s Terquavion Smith (24 points) was the best player on the floor. But Jarkel Joiner (21 points, 6 rebounds, 9 assists) was the second best and 300-pound Winthrop transfer DJ Burns (18 points, 4 blocks) was the third best. In fact, the trio outscored Duke’s entire team 63-60.
And a Duke team that has trumpeted its defensive abilities since September forced only six turnovers, while committing 21.
Points off turnovers? Try 30 to 2.
Filipowski led Duke with 14 points and 8 rebounds. Dariq Whitehead scored all 12 of his points on 3-pointers but turned it over four times. Ryan Young had 11 points but fouled out trying to check Burns.
That’s about it for anything resembling a positive sub-plot. Jeremy Roach missed all eight of his shots from the field, Tyrese Proctor had 4 turnovers in 21 minutes, Dereck Lively II and Jaylen Blakes got starts and combined for 3 points and 5 turnovers.
Scheyer reminded everyone that it’s a long season and Duke has 16 conference games left.
But something has to change. This wasn’t an X and O kind of loss. It was something more intangible.
“It starts with our mindset,” Scheyer said. “It starts with the way we come out. In both games [road losses] you could see right away our fight and competitive nature [was lacking]. There’s a huge sense of urgency. The theme is they out-played us, they out-competed us. And that’s not okay.”
That was, obviously, an ugly game to watch, in every respect. I wholly agree with you, Jim, Something "intangible" is very wrong, actually many things. Before our coaches say one word to our players, I hope that they as a staff take a very long, hard, honest look in the mirror. How can our coaches take a team of talented enough players and have them come out on the floor against a top ACC rival and show no poise, confidence and focus. Yes, there was some intensity, but it was mindless intensity. How can almost the entire team regress so badly in one game. Hope our coaches figure it out soon.
Well said Jim. I'm glad you said it like it is. I was very upset by the Wake Forest game because I'm just not used to seeing Duke not show up like they care less about winning than the other team (who wasn't very good and didn't have their students there).
This was horrific. This is what happens on the road in the ACC when you don't show up like you care. Neither team was scoring much for minutes, but we just kept it up. 4-0 became 10-0, 13-0, 15-0. Then it really snowballed.
Scheyer looked like a deer in headlights. His "adjustment" was going to zone when the problem wasn't our man-to-man. And that zone was a joke. It took State about one play to adjust to that. If he wanted to change defenses, maybe a full court press and using our depth would have given us more energy. And maybe running some semblance of offense other than settling for jacked up 3's and turnovers.
I'm going to give Scheyer time. 3 years at least, barring disaster. It's possible the problem is these players. But the #1 recruiting class in the country plus Roach and some good transfers should never look like this. I don't mind losing to State when we're a 5 point favorite on the road. But when was the last time we got utterly humiliated like this? Ralph Sampson?
This was the first time it crossed my mind that maybe Scheyer ultimately isn't going to be the right guy. I don't expect K, but this is unacceptable. I don't really mean it, but it crossed my mind that I'd rather Kara Lawson just coach our women and our men. Her team plays with heart. (Congrats on the win at Wake Forest! Keep it rolling ladies.)