Hold serve at home.
Check.
Steal one on the road?
Not there yet.
Stay healthy.
Don’t ask. But the official word on Dariq Whitehead, from Jon Scheyer.
“Haven’t even talked to our medical team yet. He felt something as he was jumping there. I need to get some clarity. I don’t know timetable, I don’t know what we’ll do other than get him back, evaluate him and go from there.”
Another road loss for Duke, this one the closest of all, which might be progress except Virginia Tech came into Monday’s game with a single ACC win and left Monday with two after a 78-75 win over Duke.
This is a game that will not look good come Selection Sunday.
Duke did lots of things well in Blacksburg, almost everything actually. They jumped to an early lead, won (barely) the battle of the boards, had lots of assists (17) and didn’t turn it over that much (11), although a sequence of turnovers near the midpoint of the first half helped jump-start a dormant Tech offense.
And Kyle Filipowski burnished his credentials as one of the nation’s top freshmen, with 29 points and 10 rebounds despite being used as a punching bag for much of the game.
But Duke sent the Hokies to the line too much and worst of all couldn’t guard VT’s shooters. You just aren’t going to be able to go on the road in the ACC and allow the home team to shoot 57 percent and come out with a win.
“Too many times we got caught without talking,” Scheyer said. “You have to talk really well on switches, when they screen and they get all of these zoom actions.”
Jeremy Roach agreed.
“We let them score 70, 70-something points? We’ve got to just double down on defense and get stops. It came down to a one-possession game, it was tied up with 30 seconds left, so we’ve just got to get that last stop.”
The Blue Devils jumped to a 7-0 lead. Tech caught up, took their first lead at 14-13 and gradually extended the lead during the first half. Tech made seven straight from the field and added some foul shots as they turned an 11-7 Duke lead into a 28-19 Tech lead.
The lead stretched to 13 at 43-30 before Filipowski led a rally that made it 45-38 at intermission.
Duke started getting stops in the second half. Or maybe Tech just missed some shots. But it was Duke’s turn to catch up and then take a lead. A Filipowski 3 put Duke up 56-53, then Proctor converted a layup and Duke led by five.
Duke did all this without Whitehead, who landed wrong on his left foot defending an entry pass early in the second half.
With Whitehead out, Jeremy Roach struggling (3 for 9) and Duke getting not much from Jaylen Blakes or Jake Grandison, Duke simply didn’t have enough weapons to close the deal. Duke didn’t quit and had a chance after a Proctor triple tied it with 41 seconds left.
But a jumper by MJ Collins broke the tie, a missed three by Proctor left it 77-75, a late Hokie foul shot added a point to the final margin, then a turnover and that was a wrap.
That last Proctor miss?
“He had a great look from the wing,” Scheyer said “and that wasn’t even necessarily the play. We wanted the ball in [Kyle Filipowski’s] hands, good things happen, really almost every time he touched it we get either a wide open shot or he got a great look himself. And he made a read, made a really good pass to Tyrese, they happened to get caught up on that initial action. And we’ll take that any day of the week. Tyrese is wide open, it hits back rim, it’s right there. And sometimes it goes in and sometimes it doesn’t. But we were looking to the put the ball in Flip’s hands.”
So, a wounded Duke team is on the way back to Durham with a bad loss and an uncertain path ahead of them.
But Filipowski remains confident, even defiant.
“As a team, we’re just working our butts off and that’s a game we should totally come out with a win. It just hurts because I know we’re working super hard, we’re getting all this backlash from everyone, but that’s just bringing us closer. It’s hard because you hate losing and I think this team is really special.”
Pretty much a definition of a must-win game
And it’s right back on the road Saturday at Georgia Tech, a team that’s lost six straight but beat Miami.