A tough afternoon in more ways than one.
Let’s be clear: Duke was in position to win this game, despite everything, but didn’t deserve to. Georgia Tech thoroughly outplayed, outhustled and outsmarted the Blue Devils at every turn and deserved this win.
They earned it.
Duke fell behind 12-2 quickly after the Yellow Jackets hit four threes to open and go up 12-2.
The Blue Devils did fight back, but without Tyrese Proctor, who went out about 70 seconds into the game with an apparent ankle injury. He did not return.
It obviously didn’t help, but it might not have mattered. Georgia Tech played one or two levels above the Blue Devils.
Duke took the lead at 23-21 but Tech took it back immediately and stayed in front until Duke tied it 62-62 with 3:43 left.
And then Mark Mitchell showed his best...and his worst.
He made a dunk, got fouled and missed the free throw. But he got the rebound and then got another dunk to put Duke up 66-62.
And then he got called for a technical for taunting.
Georgia Tech’s Miles Kelly hit both free throws and then a jumper to wipe out Duke’s biggest lead of the game in 22 seconds.
Kyle Filipowski put Duke back up 68-66 but then Tech tied it back up. And then Mitchell bobbled the ball in the lane, Baye Ndongo got a dunk, and that, pretty much, was that. Miles Kelly got a pair of meaningless free throws, but the game was already decided.
There was a lot to be disappointed about here, but the biggest disappointment to us was that Filipowski led Duke in assists.
That’s no knock on him. Any time your big gets five assists, that’s great. But only Jeremy Roach had as many as four assists. Partly that’s due to bad passing but more of it is due to guys not moving and cutting crisply.
It’s frankly baffling because this team has some really good passers. Part of the credit, of course, goes to the Yellow Jackets because Georgia Tech was much more the aggressor than was Duke.
Coach Jon Scheyer has made some adjustments. Mitchell came off the bench in this one with Ryan Young getting the start and TJ Power, at least for now, has moved ahead of Sean Stewart in the rotation.
There are reasons for that.
First, Stewart does not consistently do the things he needs to do and that hurts the team. He may be the most talented athlete on the team, but if he doesn’t know what to do or where to go, he’s hurting the team.
There’s a secondary cost to that too. Power has shown that he is a supreme offensive threat, but he has not shown that he can get his own shots, as Stewart will be able to do eventually. And right now, Power is a defensive liability. When he is older, stronger and more experienced, they can finesse that. But late against Tech, there were two plays where he just got torched.
Clearly, there’s a lot to work on, but this is still a talented group with a smart head coach and a bright young staff. Let’s try to give them the room to grow and not ride every decision on social media or rip a bunch of teenagers (okay, Young may get social security soon, but otherwise, mostly young). Demanding perfection will not help them reach it.
