Duke lacks superstars and shooters — it doesn’t matter. These Blue Devils can dominate
For anyone with a basketball memory longer than a year or two, it’s a strange thing, these Duke teams that aren’t great-shooting teams. Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith, sitting next to each other on the bench, must barely recognize this, especially in the gray-and-blue uniforms Duke wore Friday.
The gold-trimmed alternates were ostensibly an homage to Mike Krzyzewski, but they also had a distinct Milwaukee Brewers aura to them. Rollie Fingers had a great mustache, but he couldn’t hit a 3-pointer with any consistency, either.
Not that it mattered that much when Duke had players like Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett, capable of getting to the rim with unusual alacrity, but doing it now (or not quite yet, in Williamson’s case) in the NBA. In their absence, and in the absence of this season’s NBA and ACC flavor of the month, the Blue Devils were always going to have some figuring out to do — not only who’s going to score, but how exactly they’re going to.
Two games in, after the opener against Kansas and Friday’s 89-55 win over Colorado State, it looks like just about everyone’s going to get a chance to try.
“It’s like a musical,” Krzyzewski said. “When you have two guys like that, they sing all the songs and dance all the dances. Ours is more like a cabaret.”
That’s the old theater adage: There are no small parts, only small forwards.
That starts with Cassius Stanley, perhaps not the most heralded of Duke’s freshmen but the one having the most immediate impact. He’s a slasher and a leaper, not a shooter, but one difficult to defend off the bounce. In these early days, he’s the biggest surprise on the roster.
This year’s No. 1 jersey is a more traditional post player, and Vernon Carey has some back-to-the-basket moves but could stand to be a hair more aggressive. That should come with time. Matthew Hurt, too, is still feeling his way through things. Tre Jones got more confident taking open shots late last season, but he has always been more comfortable driving to the rim when he isn’t creating shots for others.
Duke’s best outside shooter is clearly Alex O’Connell, and always has been, but his defense has kept him off the floor even in situations where the Blue Devils have desperately needed his ability to stretch defenses. But he was part of a lineup that dominated defensively Friday on either side of halftime, and if he can sustain that improvement, it would give O’Connell an edge on Jack White, whose defense keeps him on the floor.
Duke was 4-for-22 from long range against Colorado State. O’Connell made three of them. The rest of the team was 1-for-16.
“We know that will come,” Jones said. “We’re still learning a lot of things about ourselves. It’s still early in the year. We’re really focused on defense right now, which can lead to easy offense. We’re still figuring out our offense, bit by bit.”
Defense is already this team’s primary strength, a significant departure from its predecessors as well. The Blue Devils clearly have many ways to score. Whether they can shoot from outside remains an open question. As does whether it will even matter.
This story was originally published November 8, 2019 at 10:25 PM.
