One thing is definitely for certain this season. This ACC is not last year’s ACC. There has been an influx of both talent and coaching that the Blue Devils are finding out first-hand make this season very unlike last years. For the second ACC game in a row, though, the Blue Devils allowed a team to get comfortable, and it nearly cost them – yet again. The scout on Florida State had to be a fairly simple one, force them to put the ball on the floor, they only need a sliver of space, so don’t give it to them. But for the majority of the game it felt like Duke either got the wrong scouting report or it was written in a different language because Florida State was simply the better team in the first half – but Duke certainly helped. There was a distinct lack of defensive awareness and definitely a lack of both cohesion and communication, and Florida State took full advantage.
Florida State started hot and stayed hot from beyond the arc, starting 5-for-6 on three-pointers to grab an early 17-11 edge. Duke would go down by as much as 7 but rallied as Cameron Boozer reached double-figures with just over four minutes before halftime, scoring his 10th point from the free-throw line. Duke scored nine of the final 14 points in the first half and entered the intermission tied at 42. The Blue Devils were paced in the first half by Cam Boozer, Isaiah Evans and Dame Sarr who combined for 29 points.
Duke began the second half forcing turnovers on the two of the first three Florida State possessions, and pushed out to a five-point lead, 49-44, after two minutes of action. Neither team could manage to pull away, the second half included 7 lead changes and 4 ties and was a constant push and pull. The Blue Devils’ defense held Florida State without a point for over three minutes, and a fast-break bucket by Sarr forced a timeout by the Seminoles with 8:35 on the clock and Duke in front by nine, 74-65. FSU responded with a 7 to 1 run forcing a Duke timeout, clinging to a 75-72 advantage. Each team hit big shot after big shot, but in the waning seconds of the game, the Blue Devils sank 6 free throws to ice the came for a 91 to 87 victory.
Paced by Isaiah Evans’ career high 28 points, the Blue Devils survive a very talented Florida State team. The Blue Devils got multiple double fire efforts including Cam Boozer, who scored 17 points on 5-9 shooting, Boozer also dished 9 assists and pulled down 5 rebounds. Caleb Foster and Dame Sarr scored 13 points a piece, combining to go 6 of 9 from beyond the arc. Patrick Ngongba rounds out the double figure scoring with 10 points on 4-5 shooting.
The Blue Devils shot the ball well from the field, going 12-27 from beyond the arc (44%) and shooting 52.8% overall. Defensively, for the Blue Devils, they gave up 46.7% shooting from 3 for Florida State and 53.4% shooting overall. Duke out-rebounded the Seminoles 31-24. The difference in the game for the Blue Devils was at the charity stripe, where they shot 92%, going 23 of 25. Outscoring the Seminoles by 12 from the line.
It’s very easy to get caught up in how bad the ACC was last season, as well as how good Duke was last season. It’s perhaps a little unfair to heap the expectations of last year’s team upon this year’s team, but it’s clear that Duke is playing a completely different brand of basketball after the holiday break. It’s hard to know if it’s a regression or a lack of practice continuity, but I don’t think anyone who watched Duke after the MSU game believes they are playing very good basketball. The plus to all this is that this team is learning to win different ways and there is time to right this ship. As of now, it’s only cost them 1 in the loss column, whereas it could have easily been 3.