Duke got the stop it needed Saturday afternoon, forcing Makai Ashton-Langford into a miss in traffic and holding off Boston College 65-64.
The win moves Duke to 12-4 overall, 3-2 in the ACC and gives Jon Scheyer his first true road win.
Duke played without captain Jeremy Roach, out with that bothersome right toe injury. Freshmen accounted for 56 of Duke’s 65 points, the most important two foul shots by Kyle Filipowski with 12.4 seconds left that put Duke up after Boston College had overcome a 14-point second-half deficit.
Duke made some bad decisions, turned it over too much (15 times), shot less than 40 percent from the field, was forced into a 2-3 zone for key portions of the second half and couldn’t knock out the home team despite leading almost the entire game.
But with the game on the line Filipowski dug out a tough rebound in traffic, drew a foul, knocked down the freebies and Duke held on. And Duke won the game from the foul line, 17-19, not an easy thing for a young team on the road.
Long-term implications? Darned if I know. That’s TBD. But I’ve always maintained that no one should ever assume a win on the road in the ACC. Better Duke teams than this have lost to worse teams than this.
With Roach out Duke started Tyrese Proctor, Dariq Whitehead, Mark Mitchell, Filipowski and Ryan Young. And this quintet did the heavy lifting. Duke only got five points off the bench, none in the second half.
Whitehead (5 points) led Duke to a 10-4 lead but six points would be Duke’s biggest first-half lead until an 8-0 Duke run broke a 21-21 tie. But every time the TV crew mentioned that BC couldn’t shoot 3s very well, they made a 3. And seven-foot Dutch transfer by way of Mississippi State Quinten Post battled Duke’s seven footers to a draw inside.
Mark Mitchell converted inside to give Duke a 37-29 lead with 1:18 left in the half. Jaylen Blakes got a steal but his layup was blocked and BC closed the half by scoring the last four points, the final two a Post buzzer-beater and Duke went into intermission up 37-33.
Duke outscored BC 10-3 to open the second half and extend its lead to 11 at 47-36. Filipowski scored five points and Duke was up 52-38.
That was the high-water mark. Duke got stuck on 52 for almost four minutes, the turnovers mounted--11 of Duke’s 15 were in the second half--and the Eagles kept getting offensive rebounds and turning them into points.
A Jaeden Zachary layup in transition tied it at 54 with nine minutes left and it was a dogfight.
Zachary’s layup was followed by a six-minute span in which neither team made a field goal.
In fact, Duke went 9:26 without a field goal, staying alive with clutch foul-shooting.
BC’s zone had a lot to do with that. Scheyer said it “slowed us down a little bit too much. Still want us to play aggressive, there’s still plenty of time left in the game. And just get organized. That group, I don’t think that group has never started [together].”
BC took its only lead of the game at 64-63 on a Post jumper with 28 seconds left.
Filipowski did his thing and Duke escaped.
And give Flip credit.
Coaches are always talking about making winning plays in the clutch and that offensive rebound in traffic was a winning play for a team that desperately needed a winning play.
Whitehead led Duke with 18 points. Filipowski had 15 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals, 3 blocks but 5 turnovers. Mitchell had 14 points, Ryan Young 7 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists.
Post led BC with 16 points
“I think we haven’t had a situation like this yet,” Mitchell summed up. “Not everything was going our way, but I think we just tried to fight, really. Getting offensive rebounds, that’s just pure fight, pure will. And that won us the game, and stepping up and hitting those free throws was a big thing by Flip. I think we grew up in the last 45 seconds. It was our first time in that situation, I think we’re just going to keep learning from that each and every game and just keep trying to grow.”
Roach update?
“We need Jeremy to get well,” Scheyer said. “If that means it’s a week, if that means it’s two weeks, whatever time that means. I would be shocked if he plays the next game [Wednesday at home against Pitt] but we’re not ruling him out yet for that.”
But for now Scheyer and his team will take a take breath and celebrate what Scheyer called “a big-time ACC road win.”
“Proud of our team to figure out a way to win. That’s what it’s all about.”
An ACC road win is always great, but there’s no way to sugarcoat how we played. Jim’s right when he says we’ve had better teams lose to worse opponents, but that was usually when the other team played the game of their dreams. BC did not play that well but still almost won.
At 52 - 38, I thought Duke would cruise to an easy victory. Boston College thought different.