Duke ‘not close’ to team it was before COVID break. Its defense allows for patience
As resilient as this never-ending pandemic has forced us all to be, even the elite athletes comprising Duke’s basketball roster need time to work through the disruptions.
The Blue Devils, ranked No. 2 in the country, held one real practice to prepare for Tuesday night’s game with Georgia Tech. An outbreak of COVID-19, despite players and coaches being vaccinated, relegated them to isolation in a hotel rather than practicing and playing games last week.
Two games were postponed. Conditioning waned. Sharp play dissipated.
Enough players were cleared to hold what amounted to a glorified shoot around last Sunday. By Monday, everyone was back on the practice court.
So it wasn’t a surprise Duke shot a season-low 37.3% as its offense really never clicked against Georgia Tech. The 69 points the Blue Devils produced marked their third-lowest total this season.
Yet Duke left Cameron Indoor Stadium early Wednesday morning with a win, something the Blue Devils accomplished because one important part of their game remained strong, despite all the issues they’ve faced the last two weeks.
“Defense,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said, “is really a key to our team.”
That’s why Duke won when it wasn’t at its best Tuesday night when it toughed out a 69-57 win over Georgia Tech.
The Yellow Jackets spent most of the night seeing its shooting percentage in the 20s. Georgia Tech finished at a season-low 32.8% as each of its players missed more shots than he made. That included guard Michael Devoe, the ACC’s leading scorer at 21.2 points per game, who managed to score 21 points while hitting only 8 of 19 shots, including 3 of 10 3-pointers.
“We talked about it at halftime,” Krzyzewski said. “I told them, ‘I know you guys are tired, but you cannot be tired on the defensive end.’”
That’s an important thing for the Blue Devils to keep in mind as they navigate their way back to where they were before taking two weeks off from games and nearly that long from practice. On Monday, Krzyzewski warned against anyone trying to “binge conditioning” to make up for lost time.
Yes Duke has sports scientists and a top-level training staff to get the players back into game shape. But it won’t happen overnight. Heck, Duke can’t even practice Wednesday because that’s the team’s NCAA-mandated one day off of the week.
So the Blue Devils’ offense, No. 6 in the country in efficiency scoring 116 points per 100 possessions according to KenPom.com, figures to take a few games to get back to that level.
In the meantime, be it against Miami on Saturday at home, or at Wake Forest the following Wednesday, Duke is probably going to have to tough out some wins like it did against Georgia Tech.
That’s ok. This team, even with its normally potent scoring ability, is built to do just that. Georgia Tech is the fifth consecutive team Duke has held below 70 points.
It would be six teams in a row but for the lone example of Duke’s defense springing a leak. That was Nov. 30 at Ohio State, when the Buckeyes shot 48.3 percent in the second half to rally from a 13-point halftime deficit to beat Duke 71-66.
“We stopped playing defense,” Krzyzewski said after the Georgia Tech game, looking back to the Ohio State game. “Tonight, we did not do that.”
Duke freshman Paolo Banchero is projected as the top pick in this summer’s NBA Draft mostly based on his 17.1 scoring average. But the 6-10 forward is of the mind to bring it on defense, too, if Duke needs that to win. He blocked three shots against Georgia Tech to tie Duke’s 7-1 sophomore center Mark Williams for the team high.
Banchero also had two of Duke’s three steals against the Yellow Jackets.
“That’s just kind of been my mentality coming into conference play,” Banchero said, “just making a difference on that end when everything else is going wrong, just being consistent defensively and putting in the effort every time down.”
Duke (12-1, 2-0 ACC) owns a sparkling record and possesses more talent than any team in the ACC. Georgia Tech coach Josh Pastner said numerous times following the game that Duke has “a really good shot at the national championship.”
COVID detoured Duke’s path to that goal. The road back won’t be easy.
“I hope we can get out of it,” Krzyzewski said, “because we are not close to being the team we were before the break. We can be, we just have to keep going.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2022 at 8:00 AM.