As ACC play begins in earnest.
Next up for Duke is Georgia Tech on the road in Atlanta, and you don’t have to have a long memory to know this is a dangerous trip.
Last year, the Devils went down to Georgia and Tech pulled off a pretty good upset, winning 72-68. The Yellow Jackets ran out to a 14-3 lead and led for most of the game. Duke did come back to take the lead in the closing minutes but it wasn’t enough.
You may have forgotten, but Tyrese Proctor hurt his ankle early in this one, playing for just the first 1:16.
Obviously things will be very different this time.
Duke has only two players back from that team but has rebuilt successfully and has a huge team that plays stifling defense.
Georgia Tech lost Kyle Sturdivant, Deebo Coleman, Tafara Gapare, Tyzhaun Claude, Amaree Abram, Ibrahima Sacko, Carter Murphy and Ebenezer Dowuona. They also lost Miles Kelly, who recently visited Cameron one last time with Auburn. He scored 16 points last year (and had 14 for the Tigers on December 4th).
The guy who really killed Duke last year though was Baye Ndongo, who had 21 points on 9-11 from the floor.
Somewhat to our surprise, Lance Terry is getting the most minutes (31.3). He’s one of four Yellow Jackets averaging double figures, in his case 15.5. Naithan George, who showed a real clutch instinct at times last season, is getting 11 ppg and six assists. He’s inconsistent, but he’s always a dangerous player who could go off at any time.
Ndongo is getting 12.9 ppg and 7.7 rebounds. Mostly an inside players, he’s shooting just 51.9 percent, which surprises us given his sheer physical talent.
Javian McCollum is putting up 10.3 points, three boards and three assists.
Freshman Jaeden Mustaf is not far behind at 9.3 ppg, 2.5 rebounds and an assist.
Kowacie Reeves gets 9.3 ppg and 2.5 boards.
Luke O’ Brien, a Colorado transfer, Duncan Powell, who is out of Sacramento State, Ryan Mutombo, who followed his legendary father at Georgetown before entering the portal and freshman Doryan Onwuchekwa round out the rotation.
So far, the Yellow Jackets are 5-6 but their losses are not really horrible. North Florida may not be a great loss, but they beat South Carolina before they beat Tech. The other losses are to a solid Georgia team (77-69), Wes Miller’s Cincinnati (81-58), Oklahama (76-61), UNC (68-65) and Chris Collins’ Northwestern (71-60).
Recently, Damon Stoudamire has tinkered with his lineup, experimenting with Onwuchekwa, Mustaf and Mutombo as starters, but the guy who concerns us is Ndongo.
Yes he’s been erratic, but he’s a tremendous athlete. It may turn out that he’s stronger than Khaman Maluach and more athletic than Cooper Flagg and is hard to contain. It’s possible that the best answer to him will be Maliq Brown. Arguably the least athletic of Duke’s trio of bigs, Brown is an unbelievably smart defender who frustrates everyone, typically before their feet leave the floor.
However, the biggest difference is Duke’s overall defense. The trio of guards - Proctor, Sion Love and Caleb Foster - is remarkably interchangeable and they all get after it on D. Flagg is supremely versatile and while we’d like to see Maluach be more aggressive, he’s still a young 17 and it’s going to take him a while to grow into his body.
Even so, he can change a lot of shots just by being 7-2 and long-armed. We haven’t seen the tip of the iceberg with that guy.
Here are some key stats to remember: Tech is not shooting overly well - 43.1 percent overall and 32.6 percent from behind the line - and 11.6 turnovers.
Terry is the best three point shooter at 39.7 percent but he’s 6-3 and will face taller defenders all game. McCollum is shooting 37 percent but he’s 6-2 and will have a similar issue. Mustaf is 6-5 and he’s hitting 33.3 percent. It wouldn’t surprise us if he went off or Reeves, who is 6-7 and will face less challenges getting a perimeter shot off against Duke’s taller defenders.
It won’t surprise us if the game goes like this: Duke’s interior defense forces Tech to shoot a lot of threes, one guy gets terrifically hot and gets the crowd excited and Duke has to work hard to overcome that emotional edge. And to be fair, not that it always matters, Duke has superior talent and will be favored. And we have to say this, too: Isaiah Evans is emerging as a superb force off the bench. He’s capable of ripping off a streak of threes at any time. He hasn’t done it on the road yet, but that’s coming.
Never forget though that Stoudamire played for Lute Olson, who had brilliant defensive strategies, and coached for/with Brad Stevens, who is one of the great basketball minds of our time.
We have no doubt that he’ll have a solid plan for Duke and of course Jon Scheyer has one for them as well.
However, as Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get hit. And last year, after Proctor went out, Duke didn’t respond well. We’ll see how things go this time.
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