The Blue Devils desperate for a road win entered McCamish Pavilion mission ready. Short-handed without freshman Dariq Whitehead, Coach Jon Scheyer inserted freshman Dereck Lively into the started lineup and he paid dividends. The feshnman center posted one of his best games as a Blue Devil scoring 9 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. Duke played the game methodically but aggressively, doing a much better job as a unit of cutting without the ball. The Blue Devils also had their way from beyond the arc. The Blue Devils shot 6-13 in the first half on their way to their 3rd straight game of shooting 39% or better.
The Blue Devils pushed an 18 point half time lead to 43 during the course of the second half. The Blue Devils would finish the game with 24 assists on 34 made shots. They also out-rebounded the Yellow Jackets 43 to 22.
Freshman Kyle Filipowski lead the Blue Devils with 18 points while grabbing 7 rebounds on 6-9 shooting. Junior guard Jeremy Roach seemed to find his stroke from beyond the arc hitting 4-7 from 3 and scoring 12 points. The Blue Devils also got double-figure efforts from Mark Mitchell (11), Ryan Young (10) and Jacob Grandison (10).
Freshman Tyrese Proctor scored 7 points and flirted with a double-double dishing 8 assists to 0 turnovers.
Defensively the Blue Devils held the Yellow Jackets to 31% shooting and 23% from beyond the arc.
- Duke’s 43-point win at Georgia Tech, 86-43, stands as the second-largest ACC road win in school history. It is just the third 40-point ACC road win in school history along with a 46-point win at Virginia, 100-54, on Feb. 11, 1999 and a 42-point win at Wake Forest, 113-71, on Feb. 28, 1967.
- Georgia Tech’s 43 points were a season low — Duke has now held 18 of 21 opponents this season to below their season scoring average, including eight to its season-low for scoring.
- Freshman Kyle Filipowski led five in double figures with 18 points and seven rebounds on 6-of-9 shooting.
- Over his five-game double-digit scoring streak, Filipowski has scored 110 points (22.0 avg) and grabbed 60 rebounds (12.0 avg).
- Freshman Tyrese Proctor scored seven points and finished with eight assists and no turnovers in 27 minutes.
- Over the last five games, Proctor has posted 23 assists and five turnovers (4.6-to-1) and has scored in double figures in four of the five.
DUKE HEAD COACH JON SCHEYER
Opening Statement:
“Really proud of our team and our effort. We had a tough loss on Monday night and to have a really good week of preparation, we felt Georgia Tech’s a dangerous team, especially at home. And I thought it was probably the best collectively on defense that we’ve played. And then on the offensive end, to share the ball and get 24 assists, to hold them to 43 and then have 24 assists, really proud of this group and how we responded. Especially when we face adversity. I thought Jeremy [Roach] played just an incredibly solid game, and when’s he ready to shoot like that, he’s heard me say it all the time, I think every shot he shoots is going in. Him and Tyrese [Proctor] had really good control over our team and just proud of the effort. Need to keep building, every game is tough and to get a win here is a great step and back to work tomorrow.”
On Duke’s offensive efforts, and the assist numbers:
“I think the biggest thing for us, we’ve done that in spurts throughout the year, we haven’t done it for 40 minutes of a game. And with every single one of our guys, it doesn’t come from a selfish place or trying to do it just on your own, it’s knowing what to do and for us, we spend a lot of time in key stretches – I thought the stretch where they cut it to seven in the first half, we’ve talked about segments of games, for us we felt it was a really important segment. Because it can either be tied at half, it can be a three, four-point game, or we can extend it. Again, do you think it’s going to be 18, that’s not necessarily what you’re talking about but to push it to 18 is a big deal. So for us, it’s watching film, we had some really competitive practices where we’re just learning how to get to the next action. If that’s not there, let’s say we call a play, what to do next? Where, for a lot of our guys, they haven’t had to do that. Proud of them learning, proud of them blocking out any noise, just focusing on getting better every day. It thought it really translated today with our offense.”
On what it’s like as a coach waiting for the results to show with all the work being put in:
“You know, I had a year to get ready for this. It’s different when you’re in it. For us, we’ve literally returned, it’s the youngest team ever, in Duke history. And so for us, the way that we’ve responded to a loss or a setback this year, that’s what our program is all about. And the only way you do that is if you hate the outcome. There’s no moral victories, there’s no part of me that was happy after losing to Virginia Tech but I’ve also seen with our group how we’ve gotten better. There’s no question we’re better than we were a month ago, or two months ago. And this league is really tough. It can expose you, especially on the road, and I think that’s been a big adjustment for us. But my thing has really been staying present, controlling what we can control, getting better every day, and I believe in this group. While also at the same time understanding the areas we have to get better at.”
On Tyrese Proctor’s eight assists and his efforts today:
“Talking about getting better, Tyrese from the start of the season to now has just grown tremendously. And we’re at our best when Tyrese is doing this. And we have weapons on the floor and I thought he put them in a great position to be really successful. I’m not positive, but I think a couple of Jeremy [Roach’s] three’s were from Tyrese. I don’t know how many, whether it’s two or three, but Jeremy, you’re asking him the question about carrying the load for the most part of the year, he hasn’t had anybody necessarily make him better. And Tyrese can do that. So what he’s done, distributing the ball, he competes and defends all the time, that’s an added element for us that’s made us a lot better.”
On Duke’s low foul count and defensive discipline:
“Yeah, that was great, let’s see if we can do it again. That was great. I think it was part of how the game went and you know, for Dereck [Lively II], that’s been something he’s had to work through. I thought he did a great job of playing without his hands, not putting his hands on guys. We need him in the game, but we’ll see if we can do that again coming up.”
On the decision to move Dereck Lively II in the starting lineup and playing Jaden Schutt:
“Well, first with Dereck – I’ve seen, and we’ve seen as a staff the last two weeks, he’s had a different level of confidence. What he’s done on the court, the Virginia Tech game I thought was pretty good, Miami game and this game, he really changed the game. And it’s not always going to translate with points because he’s a threat. So when he’s on the court, you can see the way the defense adjusts, especially in pick-and-roll. So for us, Ryan [Young] has been so solid, we need him to stay ready for us. And he’s going to be in there. But for Dereck, we just feel like it’s a time where he’s really, it’s like he’s on a launching pad right now. And he’s got a chance to take off and today was a start of it. With Jaden, he’s been working every day. Been working every day. We have good players. He’s improved, I’ve been able to see that throughout the course of the year. He’s kept a great attitude even though nobody likes not playing. You shouldn’t like playing. He’s stayed ready, I thought he gave us some really good minutes today. Didn’t hit a three, but I thought every one he took was going in. I’ve seen that many times in practice. So, different guys need to step up and we’ve had some injuries and things like that. Really proud of both those guys for just staying with it and working.”
On how Dariq Whitehead is progressing:
“Dariq’s progressing really well. Just fortunate that it wasn’t worse. It was scary at the time when he went down. And we want to make sure with him that we give him the right practice time to get back on the court where he can actually, we don’t’ want to just throw him out there where he hasn’t had a chance to get reps in practice. So, we’ll see. He hasn’t been able to do more than what he did on the court today. But obviously, he’s out there working every day with our medical team and strength and condition team, and we’ll just continue to take it day-by-day with him and make sure we don’t rush it with him but also we want him back as soon as possibly he can be back.”
JUNOR GUARD JEREMY ROACH
On Duke’s improved shooting over the last couple of games:
“Us sharing the ball, that gives us confidence. And then when you see other people share the ball, that makes you want to share the ball. When you know a shot’s coming, when you know the ball’s coming to you, you’re going to be more prepared for the shot, more ready for the shot and also you’re probably going to make the shot. So, just being ready on the catch … and keep sharing, keep moving, keep getting paint touches, second and third drive and kicks, I think that’s big for us.”
On Duke’s big men dominating on the inside against Georgia Tech:
“Just kind of wanted to have the big men set the tone [Georgia Tech is] kind of smaller inside, so we wanted to get them going early and I think we did. Towards the end of the first half, they really got going and we brought the lead up to, I think, 18. So, that helped us a lot.”
On Duke’s ball movement in the second half and the confidence the team had:
“Like I said earlier, when that ball’s popping and everybody is touching it, then everybody feels like they’re in the game and everybody feels like they can make a shot. So, if we get first and second drive and kicks, stuff like that, and guys are ready for open kicks and they’re ready to shoot the ball, it’s fun playing like that. And when you’re making shots and winning like this, it’s very fun.”
On Duke’s takeaways from the Virginia Tech game that they used in this game:
“Definitely we have a lot of takeaways from the [Virginia Tech] game. But just overall, we wanted to focus on ourselves, moving the ball, getting back to what we do, moving the ball, getting stops on defense. I think in the [Virginia Tech] game, we got a little too stagnant so getting guys moving on the offensive end, I think that was a big thing for why we had success today.”
On Duke’s defensive effort:
“Really just playing our defense. We knew they liked to do that motion, get the ball to the elbow, do a lot of split actions, stuff like that. Just doing our principles, stuff that we work on every day in practice, and it translated into the game. I think we held them to 43 points so we did a great job on all of their best players and we felt like we were locked in for pretty much all 40 minutes.”
