Shorthanded or not, Duke’s lack of toughness against Pitt has Jon Scheyer seething
Any team missing two starters is more vulnerable than usual, of course, but Duke’s Jon Scheyer has no time for such logic.
That fact was evident late Saturday night as Scheyer, while discussing his team’s 80-76 loss to Pittsburgh at Cameron Indoor Stadium, punctuated point after point by tapping the table with his index finger.
From Pitt scoring the game’s first nine points, to Duke losing the rebounding battle by seven, to Duke’s defense failing at key times, he had plenty to fume about.
“That’s not OK with me,” Scheyer said, “what happened tonight.”
No. 7 Duke clearly missed senior captain Jeremy Roach, the steady guard who has played a team-best 32.9 minutes per game this season. He was out of the starting lineup for the first time in the past 33 games due to a knee injury.
Mark Mitchell, a 6-9 forward, missed his second game in a row with a sprained knee. He could have helped close the rebounding gap and perhaps, due to his versatility, strengthened the Blue Devils’ half-court defense.
To Scheyer, though, this wasn’t about manpower. It was about manning up, particularly in defense and rebounding.
Duke’s top player, 7-foot sophomore and preseason All-American Kyle Filipowski concurred.
“They were more ready than us — no excuse on our end for that part,” Filipowski said. “Of course, it’s always tough not having two of your starters, but that shouldn’t dictate how we play the rest of the game. We shouldn’t let that affect how we play.”
One week earlier, Duke showed toughness and grittiness in taking care of Georgia Tech, 84-79. Mitchell didn’t play at all in that Jan. 13 home game, while Roach missed all but 59 seconds of the final 8:21 after getting injured.
Still, Duke made the plays down the stretch to beat the same Georgia Tech team it had lost to a month earlier in Atlanta.
Even with the health concerns, life seemed good for the Blue Devils (13-4, 4-2 ACC). They carried an eight-game winning streak into the Pitt game.
Seeing the Panthers start the game with nine consecutive points told Scheyer things were immediately off. He called a timeout less than three minutes into the game and remained incensed after because the mental toughness his team showed a week earlier disappeared.
“Defend,” Scheyer said. “You’ve gotta guard the ball. You got to defend and I thought we came out passive. I thought the defense impacted our offense because we weren’t ready at the level we needed to be.”
Pitt shot 50.8% overall, including hitting 10 of 20 3-pointers. That’s far better than their 39.8% shooting percentage in ACC games this season and their 32.1% 3-point shooting against league foes.
Simply put, the Panthers haven’t been a high-powered offense in ACC play. Their scoring output against Duke still left Pitt at No. 13 in the 15-team ACC in scoring offense (67.7).
Blake Hinson hit all seven of his 3-pointers on the way to a game-high 24 points before he celebrated by jumping on the press table after the final horn to taunt the Cameron Crazies.
That comes with the territory of playing for Duke, Blue Devils freshman Jared McCain said. The target is always there. It’s the team’s job to be tougher and prevent such losses.
“We should’ve just guarded the ball better, bullied the ball better,” McCain said. “A lot of things on our part we could’ve done better.”
Scheyer remained optimistic that neither Roach nor Mitchell are injured enough that they’ll be out for extended periods of time. Neither had done any 5-on-5 work leading up to Pitt. While weren’t in position to play, they are doing other rehabilitation work that has their return close, he said.
Their return will certainly boost the Blue Devils.
“It’s huge for us,” McCain said. “Jeremy brings that leadership and Mark, obviously playing with four guards is just different and we’re not used to it. But having Mark in there, to just be a big presence for us and Jeremy just to lead us throughout the whole game, he’s been so consistent throughout the whole year.”
Still, that’s inconsequential to how the rest of the Blue Devils respond to the Pitt loss with a game at last-place Louisville (6-12, 1-6 ACC) looming on Tuesday.
Scheyer told the team as much immediately following the Pitt loss, with visions of Hinson and the Panthers celebrating still fresh.
“Don’t feel sorry for ourselves,” Filipowski said. “We’ve got to move on. We’ve got another one Tuesday on the road. Time to pick it up.”