How Duke basketball regained its edge over the break to power past Florida State
Duke suffered a pre-Christmas loss that didn’t have to define, ruin or even mar its basketball season.
That statement would only be true, though, if the No. 17 Blue Devils responded with an effort more worthy of their talent level as soon as possible.
That opportunity arrived Saturday when Duke handled Florida State, 86-67, at Cameron Indoor Stadium in its first game since losing 81-70 at Wake Forest on Dec. 20.
The extended time between those games saw the players scatter to celebrate Christmas before returning to campus to resume practice last Monday.
The Blue Devils needed to regain their edge after that performance in Winston-Salem, when the Demon Deacons thoroughly outplayed them as Duke led for just 19 seconds.
Duke’s players reconvened on campus fully aware they needed to get better in a hurry.
“They knew we had to be a lot better,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “It wasn’t like I had to convince them of that.”
Scheyer stoked his team’s fire, though, with plenty of five-on-five scrimmages during the four days of preparation to play Florida State. It was intense work designed to help the Blue Devils regain the edge they needed.
“For us,” Scheyer said, “going against each other has gotten us better. That’s something that not a lot of teams have where we can put 10 guys on the floor that can go out and practice. We need to balance that and not do it too much where we get banged up, but we did that this week and it really benefited us.”
It was a display of Duke’s depth that showed up in Saturday’s game.
Jaylen Blakes, a sophomore guard, drew his first career starting assignment and produced his second consecutive 17-point game. Playing a team-high 30 minutes, he had just one turnover.
Ryan Young remained in a reserve role and played superbly, tallying 20 points and grabbing 12 rebounds while not missing a shot from the field or the free throw line. He played 24 minutes without a turnover.
Freshman Dariq Whitehead, after not making the trip to Wake Forest due to a non-COVID illness, scored 16 points with two assists and a steal against Florida State.
“This week was a rough week,” Whitehead said. “Coach got after us. He made sure we weren’t slacking. We were running down the court, defending at a high level. I feel like he definitely did everything he could to make sure that we were 100% locked in.”
The Blue Devils rarely lose back-to-back games. It hasn’t happened this season and it didn’t happen last season. Playing Duke after a loss is a bad place for an opponent to be.
But now, with full-time ACC play here, Duke has to start stacking such strong performances like Saturday one on top of another. Over the next 13 days, Duke plays league games at N.C. State on Wednesday, at Boston College on Saturday, a home game with Pittsburgh on Jan. 11 and a road game at Clemson Jan. 14.
The Blue Devils can do so by bringing defense and rebounding every night, two areas that were lacking at Wake Forest.
“Those are the two things that have to remain constant for our team and they should,” Young said. “We have the length and the versatility defensively. We feel we have as good of bigs on this team as anybody. We take a lot of pride in being able to rebound the ball. We got outrebounded at Wake Forest and it’s really inexcusable.”
Against Florida State, the Blue Devils won the rebounding battle, 32-24. That included 10 Duke offensive rebounds, which led to 13 second-chance points.
That kind of effort allowed Duke to win by 19 points, even though junior guard Jeremy Roach (nine points), freshman center Kyle Filipowski (six points) and freshman center Dereck Lively (zero points, three fouls) had subpar days. All three were expected to be major players in any success Duke would have this season.
Blakes, Young and Whitehead made up for their struggles on Saturday. On another day, perhaps Wednesday at N.C. State, it will be someone else who has a big game.
Only Roach and Blakes were with Duke last season and only Roach saw significant minutes as the Blue Devils made the Final Four. The rest of Duke’s roster is made of freshmen and transfers.
They were reminded over the past week about how important full effort is for each game.
“You have to do it all the time,” Scheyer said. “Because if you’re not on your A game, you’ll get beat for it. So I think we’re learning that together and we’ll grow from it together.”
This story was originally published January 1, 2023 at 5:45 AM.