Cooper Flagg’s big scoring night, Duke basketball’s resolve brought it a win at Arizona
Of course teams want to move on following a bad loss, to flush the awful experience and progress to brighter days.
For No. 12 Duke, though, the sting of a 77-72 loss to Kentucky 10 nights earlier was at the forefront of the team’s collective mind on Friday night.
No. 17 Arizona is formidable at its home arena, making McKale Center one of the nation’s top college basketball environments.
Duke grabbed a lead over Arizona less than four minutes into their game and maintained the rest of the night all the way to a 69-55 win.
How did the Blue Devils do it?
“Kentucky,” Duke junior guard Tyrese Proctor said. “I think Kentucky was a really good test. Coming out of halftime in this game, we talked about Kentucky.”
Kentucky was a tough lesson. Now perhaps the Blue Devils can remind themselves of Arizona, a game they led for 36 minutes, 19 seconds of play.
They can remember how the Wildcats clawed back within six points at 54-48 with 5:38 to play.
They can steel themselves knowing they didn’t let Arizona get any closer even as the sold-out crowd of 14,634 roared.
“We stayed together and I think everyone just came (together) as one,” Proctor said. “We didn’t separate, and we trusted our work. We knew we could pull through.”
Freshman Cooper Flagg will get plenty of the credit and that’s warranted. He scored 24 points while grabbing six rebounds and also contributing three assists, two blocked shots and a steal.
Against Kentucky on Nov. 12, Flagg produced 26 points and 12 rebounds and as special as that performance was, it still wasn’t enough to earn Duke a win.
On this night, it was because the Blue Devils played solid defense throughout and worked hard enough to grab 13 more rebounds than Arizona.
“It really started with the amazing character of the guys next to me,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said as he sat next to Proctor, Flagg and Kon Knueppel at the postgame news conference. “The connectivity of our team, to be able to bounce back after a tough loss and come back home and then to move on. We talk about just one game at a time. You have to move on, next play mentality, and we’ve had that.”
But while moving on they learned and matured. That’s important in college basketball in November.
Wins like the Blue Devils earned at Arizona are valuable currency come March when the NCAA decides tournament seeds and brackets.
Duke missed out on one opportunity against Kentucky in Atlanta. The Blue Devils found their resolve to not let a second chance get away. With more chances looming, No. 1 Kansas is Duke’s next opponent on Tuesday night in Las Vegas, the Blue Devils had to show they could finish off a win like Friday night.
Though Flagg was the team’s big scorer, it took more than him to accomplish the feat.
Knueppel shook off a tough shooting night to hit a pair of crucial 3-pointers, one coming with 5:17 to play after Arizona cut Duke’s lead to 54-48 and another at 3:55 that extended the Blue Devils’ advantage to a comfortable 61-49.
Knueppel was 2 of 9 from the field before he hit those two shots in a row. Talk about next-play mentality.
“Mental toughness,” Scheyer said. “It’s something you try to look for as much as you can in the recruiting process. Every coach wants it and wants to find it. But some of that’s from within and then some of that you try to build and give them as much confidence as you can.”
Just like Kentucky, the Blue Devils had a halftime lead at Arizona, too.
Back-to-back turnovers, one by Flagg and the other by Knueppel, early in the second half allowed the Wildcats to cut the Duke lead to 34-31.
But Arizona didn’t score for the next 4:03. While the Blue Devils were clamping down on the defensive end, a Flagg basket and 3-pointers from Caleb Foster and Knueppel extended Duke’s lead to 42-31.
Flagg scored Duke’s next 10 points but still needed those two Knueppel 3-pointers to finally put away Arizona and exorcise the demons from that Kentucky loss.
“To have the maturity to answer and then come back on defense,” Scheyer said, “I think that’s a credit to these guys. We’ve done a lot of game situations this year in preseason, but it’s really the maturity by now.”
Early maturity, at that.
Now the Blue Devils spend a couple of days at a resort near Phoenix, getting in a couple of practices on pro basketball courts at the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury practice facilities. After that it’s on to Las Vegas where top-ranked Kansas awaits at T-Mobile Arena.
This was an important win to start a key trip for Duke. Lessons learned from its last trip, the journey to Atlanta and the result against Kentucky, made it possible.