The Blue Devils entered their New Year’s Eve matchup with Georgia Tech with a lot of question marks. Duke hadn’t; t looked great since an early December matchup with Michigan State. Duke seemed to be regressing, and it’s difficult to tell off that regression is a time of year thing or an indication of a more serious issue. Both Defensively and offensively, the Blue Devils have had a myriad of issues. Georgia Tech on the other hand walks into Cameron feeling very good about themselves. Winners of 4 straight, they seem to be on an upward trajectory and getting healthy at the right time.
Georgia Tech spent the majority of the first half shooting the lights out, and the Blue Devils spent the majority of the game scratching their heads, probably not recognizing themselves. Duke’s defense was a step slow and their offense was disjointed. I haven’t seen many occasions where a Duke team, in Cameron, allowed a team to shoot closer to 70% than 50% and if there weren’t for a couple of heat checks that were bound to miss, Damon Stoudamire’s team would have shot over 70% from the field in that first stanza. Whenever Duke would seem as if they’d figured things out, the Yellow Jackets had an answer – going up by as much as 6 points early on the strength of Kowacie Reeves Jr’s 23 first half points. The Yellow Jackets shot a blistering 67.9% from the field and 55.6% from 3 in that first half, while the Blue Devils struggled mightily at just 36.7% from the field and 30% from 3. Duke boasted 2 double figure scorers in the half, with Cam Boozer going 4-8 for 11 points and Isaiah Evans adding 10. The saving grace in that first half for the Blue Devils were the extra possessions off of Georgia Tech turnovers, a 5-0 edge in second chance points and an 11 to 0 edge in free throw makes. Jon Scheyer’s team was fortunate a 4 point halftime deficit wasn’t more.
Duke settled in more in the second half, still not the efficient stout defense that they showed early in the season, but the game was still within reach. A switch to zone defense, which Scheyer called a desperation move, seemed to, for several possessions knock the Yellow Jackets out of rhythm. The Blue Devils regained the lead, 56-54, courtesy of two free throws by Nikolas Khamenia, and expanded the advantage to five with a three-point play by Cameron Boozer. Duke’s defense held Georgia Tech without a made field goal for nearly seven minutes, a stretch of 0-for-10 from the field, which allowed the Blue Devils to maintain their lead. A transition triple from Foster grew Duke’s lead to its largest of the night, 70-63, and forced a Georgia Tech timeout with 8:10 remaining. The Yellow Jackets inched within one possession, 75-73, after a triple with just under five minutes to play. A mid-range jumper by Cayden Boozer made it a five-point game, 80-75, with less than 90 seconds to play. Cameron Boozer and Evans were perfect from the charity stripe in the final 30 seconds, icing the 85-79 victory.
Cam Boozer did his thing, scoring 26 points and pulling down 12 rebounds. Isaiah Evans, despite not shooting well from beyond the arc, added 17 points, going 7-7 from the free throw line. In his first Blue Devils start, Cayden Boozer scored 13 points and dished 3 assists. Caleb Foster and Patrick Ngongba round out the double figure scoring for Duke with 12 and 11 respectively, with Foster adding a team high 4 assists. The main areas of concern for the Blue Devils after this game, center around a defense clearly struggling to get stops and a lack of solid free throw shooting, with the Blue Devils finishing up the night under 70% from the charity stripe for the 8th time in 13 games.
Jon Scheyer has mastered the art of not throwing his team under the bus as some coaches choose to do, but there was clearly a tinge of disappointment in his tone post game. He will always challenge himself to do better to get his team ready and even with the mitigating factors of being off for long stretches of time, there are times when the coach clearly didn’t recognize the effort nor the execution he’s used to from his squad. Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, it’s a 3rd straight outing which such questions arising and now that they are in the throes of ACC season, it will be interesting to see how this team responds. Over the last 3 games, there isn’t an area of the game where you can point to and say to yourself, “this Duke team really has an advantage here”. With the schedule normalizing, the hope is that repetition breeds a bit more consistency for Duke because this is not last year’s ACC and losses, like life, can come at you fast.