Jon Scheyer mentioned this past Monday that January, above all other months, is when you really learn about your team – it’s a lesson he took from Coach K. Coach. Scheyer also noted that this west coast, 2 game road trip was a chance for this young team to do some further bonding. It’s no secret that there have been struggles on the defensive side for this squad. Coming into Wednesday, the Blue Devils had allowed 50% or better shooting in 5 straight contests – not something sustainable for a team looking to achieve post season success. Jon Scheyer, more than anyone, knows how fortunate that his team was able to escape those 5 games without a loss. Something had to improve if the Blue Devils were going to stay atop the ACC – and it did.
There was a marked different in the defensive intensity to begin the Cal game. The Blue Devils didn’t start the game particularly hot from the field, but their defensive effort kept them nipping at the heels of the Cal Bears, who raced out to a 13-7 lead at the 13-minute mark of the first half on a Lee Dort alley-oop. The Blue Devils fought back, taking a 2 point lead on a Caleb Foster 3 at the 8:42 mark (17-15) but a couple of miscues defensively including a couple of wide open drives to the paint had the Bears back in front by 6 with 4 minutes before the halftime buzzer. The Blue Devils locked down defensively in the final 4 minutes and rode a 16-3 run to take control of the game, taking a 7 point lead into the half led by Isaiah Evans 12 points.
Cal would not simply fold at home against a ranked Duke team in the second half. The Bears battled Duke to a 41-41 tie on the strength of an 11 to 4 run spanning the first 5 minutes of the second stanza. Duke responded going back up 5 on an Isaiah Evans 3 pointer (48-43). From then on Cayden Boozer, who’d only had 8 points to that point began to exert his will in the paint scoring 13 of Duke’s final 23 points, while defensively Duke held the Bears to just 11 points in the final 11 minutes of the game. That 23 to 11 run to end the game provided Duke its 15 point margin of victory.
Despite a slow start, Cam Boozer led all scores with 21 points scoring 17 in the second half. Boozer finished with 13 rebounds, nothing his eighth double-double of the season. Isaiah Evans, whose offense kept Duke afloat in the first half and who hit timely 3’s in the second half, finished with 17 points. Even with the scoring, Coach Scheyer praised Evans’ defensive effort in the post game. Dame Sarr didn’t have a statically great game against Cal, but won’t show up on any stat sheet is how the freshman again led the Blue Devils in defensive intensity, shutting down leading Cal scorer Dai Dai Ames, who came in averaging 17.8 points per game. Ames finished the game with 8 points on 11 shot attempts going 0-2 from beyond the arc. Duke held the Bears to just 36.5% shooting in the game and 21.7% shooting from beyond the arc.
Duke stays unbeaten in the ACC on the strength of what they were able to do defensively. It was by no means perfect but if they can follow this performance up with a similar effort against Stanford perhaps, as Scheyer has often mentioned, this could be an inflection point for his team. We’ll find out Saturday night.