Duke basketball figures out Syracuse zone defense, earns important 77-55 ACC road win
Often plagued by poor shooting spells this season, Duke blitzed Syracuse’s famed zone defense Saturday to post a comfortable win.
Led by Dariq Whitehead’s four 3-pointers, the Blue Devils shot 54.5% overall to top the Orange, 77-55, in ACC basketball before a crowd of 31,063 at the JMA Wireless Dome.
The Blue Devils (19-8, 10-6 ACC) hit 13 of 26 3-pointers, their season-high for 3-pointers made in an ACC game this season.
“I thought, overall, we just made the right play and shared it,” said Duke coach Jon Scheyer, whose team finished with 14 assists. “I don’t think it’s more complicated than that. We didn’t do anything crazy on offense in terms of Xs and Os. But it’s more about playing fundamentally sound.”
Junior guard Jeremy Roach hit three 3-pointers while scoring 17 points to pace Duke.
A 6-foot-7 freshman, Whitehead scored 14 points off the bench. He scored 11 of those points in the first half to help Duke build a lead as large as 19 points.
“I just feel like we did a great job of moving the ball as a team and that was what helped us come up with the win,” Whitehead said.
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Fellow freshman Kyle Filipowski scored 14 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for Duke, which won its third ACC road game of the season.
Joe Girard scored 21 points for Syracuse while Judah Mintz added 18. But their teammates contributed little else as the Orange (16-11, 9-7) shot just 35.2% and produced its season-low point total in ACC play.
The Blue Devils dominated in rebounding, finishing with a 38-25 advantage. Dereck Lively, Duke’s 7-1 freshman center, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked three shots.
Jesse Edwards, Syracuse’s 6-11 center who entered the game averaging 14 points and 10.2 rebounds, finished with five points and five rebounds.
Duke’s 21-2 run late in the first half turned a 19-19 tie into a 40-21 lead for the Blue Devils, and they never trailed again.
“That’s exactly how we should approach teams and opportunities like that,” Filipowski said. “We should really just take hope out of them. I think we did a great job of that today, and we’ve got to do that more often.”
After turning the ball over seven times in the game’s first 12 minutes, Duke had only one turnover during that push.
Jacob Grandison started the Duke scoring explosion at 7:04 with a 3-pointer. Roach hit two free throws before Lively’s blocked shot started a Duke fast break that Proctor ended with a 3-pointer.
Mintz temporarily stopped Duke’s onslaught with a basket, but the Blue Devils responded with 13 consecutive points.
That run started when, after Grandison missed a 3-pointer, Lively snared the rebound and kicked it out for a Roach 3-pointer. Whitehead hit another 3-pointer before Filipowski scored a transition layup and added his own 3-pointer.
Roach’s basket in the lane after a baseline drive put Duke up 40-21 with 2:25 left in the first half.
The Blue Devils didn’t score the rest of the half as the Orange tallied the final six points to leave Duke with a 40-27 lead at the break.
Duke shot 55.6% in the first half, including 8 of 14 on 3-pointers.
The turnovers kept the Blue Devils from building an even larger first-half lead. Syracuse scored 15 points off Duke’s 10 first-half turnovers.
But the Blue Devils had just four turnovers in the second half to leave Syracuse with an impressive win.
This story was originally published February 18, 2023 at 8:05 PM.