Duke Cruises Past the Runnin’ Bulldogs (Gardner-Webb)

Duke turns on the afterburners against Gardner-Webb in the second half and cruises behind Jon Scheyers 36 point clinic.  Jon could do no wrong in this game, shooting 7 of 9 from 3 and 11 of 13 overall and perfect from the line at 7 for 7. Scheyer damn near pulled off a triple double with 9 assists and 8 rebounds.

There was no answer for Scheyer this night, he asserted himself on both ends of the floor and didn’t take selfish or forced shots. Andre Dawkins added 16 points off of the bench returning to Duke after losing his sister in a tragic car accident.  Dawkins went 3 of 5 from 3 point range and has been steady for Duke this year. Probably the most important player to enroll this year.  Miles Plumlee and Bryan Zoubek both scored 13 each, Zoubeks came off the bench but both looked good. It was only Gardner-Webb but if you can do these things against a lesser opponent hopefully muscle memory will carry these habits into ACC play. One particular play when Zoubek got a rebound and to my surprise he did not bring the ball down to chest level, but went straight up with it, it resulted in a 3 point play. Little things like this in addition to his excellence at screen setting will keep him on the floor should be stay out of foul trouble. This was probably one of Zoubeks best games of the year and possibly one of the best of his career as far as execution goes.

Nolan Smith scored a respectably 11 in this game, though his shot wasn’t dead on tonight he did make some spectacular plays. One such was a dunk on the break right down the heart of the defense. He also had 2 steals and a block. Kyle Singler didn’t score until the 16 minute mark in the second half and with Scheyers explosion and the balance Duke displayed on offense his offense was not essential. He still ended up with 11 points, all in the second half on 4-8 shooting. Kyle also pulled down 6 rebounds.

Duke got back to basics and played good defense for most of the game, although Gardner-Webb did hit some big 3’s in this game btu didn’t shoot it well as a whole. It’s an interesting offense that Gardner-Webb employs, not sure if it was Dukes defense or if by design but they always seemed to end up with an open shot from about 7-10 feet, they hit a good amount of these shots but I imagine Duke can live with them taking that shot.

There are still tweaks that need to be made to make the offense more crisp and the defense  a little less loose and porous, but definitely a game to build on for the Devils. More on this game in a bit and a preview of Gonzaga.