Duke basketball dominates Oral Roberts in 74-51 first-round NCAA Tournament victory
Duke hit Oral Roberts with an opening punch Thursday night and, when the second half began, drilled the Golden Eagles with another to remove any thoughts of an upset.
The Blue Devils scored the game’s first 15 points, following that up with the first 10 after halftime on the way to a 74-51 NCAA Tournament East Region win at Amway Center.
“It’s just kind of what we’ve been sticking to the last five, six, seven games,” Duke freshman Kyle Filipowski said. “Just go out there and punch them in the mouth. Stay poised when they make a run back.”
Seeded No. 5 in the East, Duke (27-8) won its 10th consecutive game and advanced to Saturday’s second round to play No. 4 seed Tennessee (24-10), which eliminated No. 13 seed Louisiana, 58-55, Thursday night.
No. 12 seed Oral Roberts (30-5) entered the game with the nation’s longest winning streak at 17 games, having not lost since Jan. 9. But the Golden Eagles were no match for the ACC champion Blue Devils, who led 40-23 at halftime and quickly pushed their lead to 27 points at 50-23 just four minutes into the second half.
“Wrong night to have a bad night,” Oral Roberts coach Paul Mills said. “A lot of credit goes to Duke.”
Junior guard Jeremy Roach, fresh off scoring a career-best 23 points in Duke’s 59-49 win over Virginia in the ACC tournament final last Saturday night, poured in 23 points again to lead the Blue Devils against Oral Roberts.
“Jeremy has been on a tear,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “For me, it’s more just his mindset. I think the scoring, the playmaking comes with it. He’s never rattled.”
Freshman Dariq Whitehead finished with 13 points for Duke, which shot 48.4% and committed only seven turnovers.
Duke’s defense stymied the Golden Eagles’ normally potent offense, holding Oral Roberts to 30.2% shooting. The Golden Eagles entered the game shooting 47.9% for the season.
“Their protection around the rim is tremendous,” Mills said. “If you look at it, they’re the 24th best defense in the country, but their ability to defend the 3-point line is amongst the top 30 in the country, and then their ability to have rim protection is elite, as well.”
Senior guard Max Abmas, star of Oral Roberts’ run to the Sweet 16 in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, scored 12 points on 4-of-15 shooting against Duke while committing five turnovers. He entered the game averaging 22.2 points per game this season.
Though they’ve averaged 84.2 points per game this season, it took the Golden Eagles eight minutes and four seconds of play before they scored their first points against Duke.
The Blue Devils took the drama out of their tournament opener quickly.
While Oral Roberts missed its first 12 shots, the Blue Devils rattled off 15 consecutive points to take control.
Five different Duke players scored during that stretch, starting with a Dereck Lively dunk and ending with reserve center Ryan Young’s spin move to score inside with 12:16 to put the Blue Devils up 15-0.
Duke’s led never dropped below 12 points from there.
When Roach scored on a reverse layup in traffic under the rim with 1:06 left until halftime, Duke’s lead grew to 20 points for the first time at 38-18.
Roach led Duke with 13 first-half points while Whitehead tallied 10. The Blue Devils shot 50% in the first half (16 of 32), while making four 3-pointers.
The Golden Eagles were just 9 of 34 (26.5%) in the first half, making only 3 of 15 3-pointers.
It didn’t get much better in the second half for them, either.
Playing their first NCAA Tournament game without Mike Krzyzewski as their head coach since March 15, 1980, the Blue Devils gave Scheyer his first tournament win as a head coach in easy fashion.
This story was originally published March 16, 2023 at 9:03 PM.