If Duke Basketball was a stock, Saturday screamed buy
Duke’s visit to SMU set up a very possible scenario: the Mustangs come out on fire, Boopie Miller goes nuts trying to relive his game against Duke last year when he was a Demon Deacon and the crowd goes crazy. SMU gets an historic win over the Blue Devils and barges into the upper levels of the ACC, kicking the door down, Texas style.
That didn’t happen of course.
Duke showed a lot of growth in this game and in a lot of ways. Let’s dive in.
First, Cooper Flagg is immensely gifted, but he’s been happy to defer to others because his focus is on winning.
He didn't really do that here. Flagg was aggressive offensively, leading the team with 24 points and shooting 7-12/2-2 and also 8-8 from the line. He’s superbly good at doing the little things. If Saturday was a sign that he’s willing to take the game by the throat, well, that’s great news for Duke.
Also great news: Khaman Maluach was aggressively seeking shots to block. At times, he hasn’t done that. He’s always imposing because he’s 7-2 and really long, but Maluach is still getting used to college basketball. Sometimes he just puts his arms up and that’s sort of effective because he’s so long, but it’s fairly passive.
He wasn’t passive here - far from it. Maluach had a somewhat modest stat line - eight points, eight rebounds and one block - but it was a different Maluach. His shot hunting was part of it and it had an effect on SMU, not least of all on Samet Yigitoglu, but did you notice that when he scored once under the basket, that he got the ball and just went straight up?
He has had a hard time with that. His upper body strength really isn’t overwhelming and he’s been hesitant to attack with the ball unless it’s a lob or a dunk. That’s another good sign.
Kon Knueppel played well Saturday, but more importantly, he played well with Flagg and Maluach. Not to say that he hasn't before but they meshed well as a unit. Knueppel hit 3-8 for his threes, 5-10 overall, and he had two assists. And if we’re not mistaken, both were to Maluach. They’ve worked out a nice chemistry for lobs.
Tyrese Proctor and Sion James have evolved into a really nice backcourt and are playing well together. And while Proctor had a tough shooting year last season at times, this year he’s become much more dangerous. In his last three games, he’s shot 57.1 percent against Georgia Tech, 44.4 percent against Virginia Tech and 45.5 percent against SMU Saturday. And of course his defense has always been solid.
As for the powerful James, he’s turned into an excellent point guard for this team. He can score, generally on drives but occasionally on threes as well, but he’s willing to defer to others offensively and can get people the ball where they want it too.
With the starters becoming a unified group, Duke isn’t losing much when they go to the bench. Maliq Brown is an outstanding defender and Mason Gillis provides maturity and leadership. Caleb Foster can sub for either Proctor or James and Isaiah Evans might be the most dangerous three point shooter on the team.
And you get the sense lately that Jon Scheyer wants to get Patrick Ngongba more minutes. He emerged as a promising high school player when he lost weight. He needs to refine his body more, but you can see the smarts in his game already. He brings some different things to the post. Getting him some more reps could be really helpful.
While the defense is the most impressive aspect of this group, what’s most interesting lately is how well it has come together. The chemistry appears to be really good.
There’s a stretch of games coming up that are mostly against some of the conference teams that have struggled. Pitt comes to Durham on Tuesday - we’re not talking about them - and after that, the Blue Devils will see Notre Dame, Miami and BC, then a swing through Tobacco Road with a trip to Wake Forest followed by NC State and UNC at home.
From there it’s trips to Syracuse and Clemson, followed by a Bay trip to play at Cal and Stanford and then up to Charlottesville for a bout with Virginia.
We hope that those teams get better. We’re not really talking about UNC or Clemson because Duke-UNC is never easy and Clemson, solid again, wants to pay Duke back for last year’s loss at Cameron, one that Brad Brownell felt cheated the Tigers.
But the ACC is down. Everyone gets that. And if Duke rolls through without some body blows, it’s not going to help very much.
Our guess is that at least some of these teams will improve considerably and by the end of the season, several ACC teams are going to be really good. UNC and Notre Dame were what we hope to see more of.
