With improved Duke basketball defense on display, Blue Devils know they’ll need more
Tucked inside all of the postgame chatter from Duke’s 65-61 win at Virginia Wednesday night was an important nugget from coach Mike Krzyzewski that could mean plenty in the coming weeks.
“I’m proud of our guys,” Krzyzewski said. “We actually prepared extremely well for this game, more like a veteran team, and I thought our defense was excellent.”
Heading down the home stretch of his 42nd and final regular season as Duke’s coach, Krzyzewski longed to see his team embrace such preparation. Although the No. 7 Blue Devils (24-4, 14-3 ACC) are in first place in the league standings with 10 wins in their past 11 games, they have produced uneven performances over the past two months.
After routing rival North Carolina, 87-67, on Feb. 5, Duke dropped a home game to Virginia, 69-68, when it made critical errors on offense and defense in the final minutes.
On Feb. 15 at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Blue Devils built a 19-point lead over Wake Forest only to see the Demon Deacons tie the score before Mark Williams’ put-back basket in the final seconds delivered a 76-74 win.
So while Duke has a sparkling record and will clinch the ACC tournament’s No. 1 seed with two wins in its final three games, a higher level of focus and play will be needed to win bigger prizes in March and April.
The Blue Devils displayed that at John Paul Jones Arena on Wednesday night, holding off Virginia’s charges time and time again to emerge victorious in a nip-and-tuck game.
“I think that showed in our play on defense,” Duke associate head coach Jon Scheyer said Thursday morning. “Offensively, we did take great care of the ball and valued it.”
Duke turned the ball over only eight times, or on 13.6% of its possessions. For the season, Virginia’s hard-nosed defense has forced teams to turn it over 16.3% of the time.
In Duke’s loss to the Cavaliers earlier this month, the Blue Devils committed 15 turnovers, coughing it up on 23.4% of their possessions.
On Wednesday night, the Cavaliers shot 43.6% from the field. That’s actually better than the 40.5% teams have shot against Duke for the season. But the Blue Devils did an exceptional job of finishing defensive possessions with rebounds.
Back on Feb. 7, Virginia secured 11 offensive rebounds. On Wednesday night, the Cavaliers had no offensive rebounds in the first half and finished with just six.
How important was that part of the game? When the Cavaliers scored off rebound baskets on their first two possessions of the second half, an angry Krzyzewski called a quick timeout to correct things.
“We fought, we kept them off the offensive boards,” Scheyer said. “And that’s been the making of a great Duke defensive team through the years.”
Scheyer said the players just “leaked out” early on those two possessions after halftime. But, otherwise, he called the game “just a really steady performance.”
“We’ve played 28 games so it’s our 28th preparation,” Krzyzewski said. “I thought the maturity of our team and the preparation went to a different level. They’re getting it.”
The win gave Duke its fourth five-game winning streak of the season. Only once previously have the Blue Devils extended it beyond five. That was when Duke started the season with seven consecutive wins to achieve the nation’s No. 1 ranking.
Ohio State changed that, rallying from 15 points down in the second half to beat Duke, 71-66, on Nov. 30.
Losses to Miami, 76-74 on Jan. 8, and Virginia on Feb. 5 halted Duke’s other five-game streaks.
To win the NCAA championship the Blue Devils long to deliver to Krzyzewski in his final season, it will take a six-game winning streak through March and April.
For a team that starts three freshmen, playing consistently at a high level isn’t easy early in the season. It’s more likely later.
“I think the preparation was at a really high level,” Scheyer said. “Look for when you’re in high school, the preparation, the scouting reports, the attention to detail, our guys haven’t had to have that at that level because the talent discrepancy is so much bigger. So I think for us going through, you know, 26-27 games, they’ve learned the importance of understanding the preparation. That takes attention to detail that you have to have. For us as a staff, we felt like it was the best that we prepared.”
This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 7:10 AM.