The Blue Devils lost, but it’s a game that will help Duke later
Duke and Kansas had a heavyweight match in Las Vegas Tuesday night and while #1 Kansas won 75-72, Duke won too.
It’s just that it’ll take longer to realize what the Blue Devils gained in Sin City.
Kansas is a really good and smart basketball team. They have three players who really push the team forward - Hunter Dickinson, KJ Adams and Dajuan Harris. There are other important Jayhawks obviously, but these three really drive the bus. And they do so in a nicely complimentary manner.
Kansas started out red hot, shooting 80 percent for part of the first half, but as the announcers correctly understood, that wasn’t going to last, and Duke would start to hit some shots too. And that happened. Duke fell behind early, 16-3, but fought its way back into the game, thing the game at 32-32 with 3:37 left in the first half.
Kansas made it clear that they were going to defend Duke’s freshman phenom aggressively, double-teaming him frequently in the first half.
But as Duke began to find the open shooters, Kansas had to back off of that strategy. Flagg didn't have a phenomenal offensive game, but he wasn’t completely suppressed either.
Kansas pushed back out in front after halftime, but they would not dominate Duke again as they did in the opening few minutes. Duke pushed back and the game was back and forth for the rest of the way, not least of all because of the gritty play of Maliq Brown and Sion James and, to a lesser extent, Mason Gillis. The experienced transfers really helped steady Duke during some tough stretches.
Ultimately, despite their outstanding contributions and some very good play from Tyrese Proctor, Duke came up short in the end. Cooper Flagg, who turned the ball over twice against Kentucky near the end, spun into traffic in the lane late and was stripped. It reminded us of Kyle Filipowski as a freshman. He has one of the quickest spin moves we’ve ever seen, but he kept spinning into guards. He learned and so will Flagg.
Duke didn’t necessarily handle winning time well. Flagg had his turnover and then Kon Knueppel had one too when he drove and got caught off the ground with nowhere to go.
Khaman Maluach put Rylan Griffen on the line with :02 left and he made both of his free throws to give KU a 75-72 lead. Duke got the ball over the half-court line and immediately called timeout and Jon Scheyer drew up a play that got Knueppel a clean look at a three that would have tied the game. It rimmed out though and that was that.
Still, there were a lot of positives to this one. The younger Devils - Flagg, Maluach and Knueppel - got to see what it was like to play against a physical, older team. Dickinson in particular schooled Maluach, tossing him around at times like a rag doll. Flagg and Knueppel took some shots too. Nothing dirty, mind you (other than Dickinson’s head shot), just some hard-nosed basketball. They’ll have to learn to deal with that sooner or later, so sooner is better.
Flagg eventually figured out how to do it and finished with 13 points, five rebounds and three assists. Knueppel got blanked from three point range, shooting 0-8, but still managed 11 points and eight assists. He didn't shoot well but he competed. And while Brown outshone Maluach for most of the game, Maluach didn't stop competing.
And don’t overlook the veterans: Proctor shot 5-7 from deep and had six rebounds. Brown was sensational at times on defense, James was tough all around and Gillis was reliable and smart.
In short, this isn’t the worst loss in the world. A team with three freshmen starters took the #1 team in the country to the wire. Kansas was better Tuesday, but the Jayhawks are an older, more experienced team.
Duke needs these sorts of games to gain their own experience. The loss was disappointing obviously, but not the effort. The mistakes were disappointing but those will become less and less as the season goes on. Duke’s future remains incredibly bright.
