What was it the poet said?
Two out of three ain’t bad?
Meat Loaf wasn’t talking about Duke basketball and Duke certainly didn’t go 2,500 miles or so to come home with a second-place trophy.
But Duke just as certainly didn’t do anything to earn anything better at Portland’s Phil Knight Legacy Tournament.
If you’ve been following the season closely, you probably weren’t all that surprised. New coach, young team, some serious preseason injuries.
Not exactly the recipe for success in November.’
Jon Scheyer has maintained from day one that this team’s foundation would be defense and that defense certainly accounted for the two games Duke did win. But in four games away from Cameron Indoor Stadium--five if we count the Houston scrimmage--Duke simply hasn’t shown any ability to put points on the board at a level comparable to what we’ve seen in recent years, decades really.
Look at the tournament opener against Oregon State. Duke held a Pac-12 team to 51 points, outrebounded them 45-29 and turned it over only eight times.
And still sweated out a 54-51 win after shooting an historical bad 26.7 percent from the field. Had Kyle Filipowski (19 points, 14 rebounds) and Ryan Young (11 points, 15 rebounds) not dominated inside Duke would have lost to a team that won three games last season.
“Their switching defenses really hurt us,” Jon Scheyer said. “I thought it stood us up. It made us really hesitant on offense.”
Memo to future Duke opponents. Switch up your defenses.
Or maybe a learning opportunity. Young team, November and all that.
And Duke was much better the next day against Xavier, a better team than Oregon State and a good measuring stick for that young team.
Duke led 36-27 at intermission and surged to a 49-36 lead early in the second half. Xavier made some runs, Duke held up and closed out a 71-64 win.
Pretty solid. Duke shot 50 percent from the field-5 for 11 on 3s--played even on the boards and got 20 points off its bench.
And Jeremy Roach was the Jeremy Roach Duke fans hoped for; 21 points, 5 assists, 2 steals, 9 for 15 shooting.
“The thing that I loved for him today was he was just him,” Scheyer said. “And when he’s that way, to me, he’s the best guard in the country. He controlled the whole game, created for others.”
Roach suggested the offensive woes were a thing of the past.
“We hesitated a little bit [against Oregon State], not confident all the way, not confident with the shots. I mean we just want to shoot our shots with confidence.”
After a day off Duke met Purdue for the title, the Boilermakers fresh off an upset win over Gonzaga. The big question was whether Duke’s platoon of big men could control Purdue’s 7-4 star Zach Edey.
The answer was an emphatic no.
Duke looked good early, leading by as many as seven points, at 14-7. But the Blue Devils only scored two points over the next five minutes, fell behind and never led after that.
Edey provided the key separation, scoring inside on three consecutive possessions to put Purdue up 36-23.
It was 46-35 at the half.
Duke tightened up defensively after intermission but the offense went back into hibernation.
Purdue’s lead ballooned to 58-41. Duke an 8-0 run to make it 58-49 but couldn’t sustain it.
The final was 75-56, the most points Duke has allowed this season.
Tournament MVP Edey ended with 21 points and 12 rebounds, while Fletcher Loyer hit four 3-pointers on the way to an 18-point outing.
Those four 3-pointers were twice as many as the entire Duke team mustered, 2 for 19, with Kyle Filipowski accounting for both Duke makes. He and Roach ended with 14 points. Tyrese Proctor led Duke with 16 points.
No one else scored more than six points for Duke.
And Duke only had eight assists and got blasted on the boards 42-31.
We did see some zone from Duke and Scheyer indicated that would be part of the team’s game-plan down the road.
But Filipowski said that Purdue “just out-toughed us” and Proctor said that “a couple of our shots weren’t the right shots” and “we needed to win more 50/50 balls.” That’s the way post-games sound when you’ve just lost a title game by 16 points.
Scheyer called Edey probably “the most unique player in the country,” and added “we’ll learn. We obviously have a lot of things we need to do better.”
Duke comes back home for Ohio State Wednesday night in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge and we’ll see if the learning has begun.
3-point shooting has me really concerned. If it doesn't our ceiling becomes much lower. I'm not as worried about the defense. What Duke needs is the Dariq Whitehead that was a top ten recruit to shake off the rust and become the alpha on offense.
GoDuke!
It was 75-56