Preview: #6 Duke Blue Devils (1-0, 0-0 ACC) vs. Western Carolina Catamounts (0-1, 0-0 SoCon)

#6 Duke Blue Devils (1-0, 0-0 ACC) vs. Western Carolina Catamounts (0-1, 0-0 SoCon)

Saturday, Nov. 8 • 1:30 p.m. ET

Cameron Indoor Stadium • Durham, NC

TV: The CW

Tickets

Radio: Blue Devil Sports Network from LEARFIELD

Duke welcomes the Western Carolina Catamounts to Cameron Indoor stadium in the first home game of the season for the Blue Devils.

TV/Video Stream The CW
Play-by-Play Rick Allen
Analyst Mike Gminski

Duke vs Western Carolina
Duke: 3 Wins, 0 losses

Last Matchup
12/30/1996
Duke 104 – WCU 54

The Western Carolina Catamounts are coming off of a rough 8-22 season that saw them go 4-14 in conference, finishing 9th in the Southern Conference. This season’s preseason coaches poll has them tabbed to finish 7th in the conference.

Western Carolina retained their second and third leading scorer off of last season’s squad in Marcus Kell and Cord Stansberry. Kell, a senior this season, averaged 11.7 points and 5.5 boards during last season’s campaign from the forward spot. Cord Stansberry, a 6’3 senior guard out of Shadow Hills, CA who averaged 11.2 points, 3.8 boards and 1.5 assists last. Coach Craft, through the transfer portal, added 5th year senior Julien Soumaoro. Soumaoro, a 5’11 guard out of the Bronx, played his previous season at East Carolina after spending 3 years at Gardner-Webb.

Last Time Out:

The Catamounts struggled mightily against a strong Cincinnati team, losing 94-63 to start the season 0-1. Western Carolina did outbound the Bearcats by 1 but struggled to defend the paint and take care of the basketball. The Bearcats scored 30 points in the paint and shot over 50% from the floor, while Western Carolina turned it over 22 times, leading to 26 points for Cincinnati.

The Blue Devils are coming off of a 35-4 season that saw them within a game of a title shot. Duke went 19-1 in conference, winning both the regular season and the ACC Tournament.

The Blue Devils welcome in a number 1 recruiting class after their Final Four run. Jon Scheyer after losing his entire starting lineup to the NBA but retaining core pieces with experience. Leading Duke are experienced returners senior big Maliq Brown and junior guard Caleb Foster, both instrumental pieces in Duke’s run this past season. Duke also returned 3 members from last season freshman class in hot shooting Isaiah Evans, who shot a team high 41.6%. Duke also brings back Darren Harris who has reshaped his body in hopes for a larger role and Patrick Ngongba who similarly has reshaped his frame, coming into this season healthy.

Duke’s freshman class includes the Boozer brothers, Cayden and Cameron, do-it-all forward Nik Khamenia and Italian import Dame Sarr. Duke also added reserves Jack Scott and Ifeanyi Ufochukwu, from Princeton and Rice, respectively.

Last Time Out:

Duke faced a tough Texas Longhorn team coached by Sean Miller. Duke struggled in the first half but were able to pull away in the second half for a 75-60 win led by sophomore flamethrower Isaiah Evans. Evans scored a career high 23 points in the win. Freshman Cam Boozer, despite going scoreless in the first half notched his first double-double in his first career game, scoring 15 points and pulling down 13 rebounds.

With one game under their belts, the Blue Devils have a game that should afford them the opportunity to fine tune the obvious miscues that plagued them against Texas in the first game. Slow starts have been a bit of an issue for this team going back to their exhibition season, but against Texas it seemed like they recovered fairly well after an early Texas lead, but offensive lulls and defensive lapses still were scattered about the first stanza of game one. Texas showed the Blue Devils what they will likely face all season, with the size that the Blue Devils bring positionally, teams like Texas have to mitigate what should be a decided Duke advantage on the glass by crashing their guards. Texas really brought it against Duke in terms of physical guard rebounding. The Blue Devil guards have to understand the assignment and not simply assume that Cam Boozer or Patrick Ngongba have that stat taken care of. Part of valuing the basketball is securing the exchange – it can’t always be the bigs as Texas proved. I understand the lust for guards leaking out for fast break opportunities, but rebounding is paramount to gaining an offensive possession. Duke has to that better. The second half against the Longhorns showed they could, but can they start a game that way? Those are the types of things Duke needs to work on. In addition to defensive communication, again, they did it well in the second half of game 1, but didn’t really begin the game with that same sort of fervor.