Duke has often been young in the Champions Classic. But this time it played like it.
Jeremy Roach took his all-but-preordained spot in the starting lineup Tuesday night ahead of Jordan Goldwire. Youth, as always, must be served at Duke.
When the Blue Devils came back to life in the second half against Michigan State -- too late, as it turned out -- both the offense and the defense ran instead through Goldwire, the senior point guard who arrived on campus eons ago with only a scant fraction of the hype that surrounded Roach and his freshman classmates, or so many of the freshmen that came before them.
Goldwire has outlasted them all, still around exactly for a moment like this, when the moment isn’t too big for him but was too big for others.
Goldwire may not have his younger teammates’ raw talent, but he could weather the Spartans’ hustle and harassment on a night they could not. Duke let Michigan State off the hook early, letting the out-of-sorts Spartans find their footing instead of putting them away. The Blue Devils, looking tentative and naive, found theirs only in a finishing flurry that flattered the final score. The Spartans led by as many as 16 on their way to a 75-69 win.
Mike Krzyzewski talked afterward about the number of players on his team who had never been in a game like this before, but that’s always the case for Duke at this point in the season, a worrying harbinger for this group. The Champions Classic, in other years, has been a nationally televised coming-out-party for any number of Duke star freshmen who became household names if they weren’t already: the championship trio of Justise Winslow, Tyus Jones and Jahlil Okafor; RJ Barrett and Zion Williamson; Jabari Parker (in a loss).
Youth has been if anything an asset, not a hindrance, in the past, against more experienced Michigan State and Kansas teams. (Kentucky is almost always in the same boat.) Even last year in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, a similar early season test and on the road no less, Duke freshman Vernon Carey was an unstoppable force in East Lansing against a much older Michigan State team like this one.
It was starting to feel that way Tuesday for Jalen Johnson, whose full-court game was spectacular in his debut against Coppin State and dangerous against Michigan State until first-half foul trouble intruded. By the time he got back into the game, Michigan State was ready for him and Duke both. Johnson’s window to dominate had closed.
Duke’s other freshmen were unprepared for Rocket Watts’ speed and Michigan State’s toughness at both ends of the court, and unlike their predecessors, these newcomers don’t have the excess of superstar talent that has often been the antidote for any naivete -- especially against Michigan State, which has had teams with Final Four pedigrees knocked around by Duke players with only AAU trophies in many a November and December meeting.
“Some of our freshmen, it’s their first time playing against that,” Goldwire said.
It always is.
This time, instead of youthful exuberance on this big stage, there was only youth. Too much of it.
D.J. Steward, the star of the opener, was 0-for-7. Roach was mostly anonymous. Johnson was slowed by foul trouble. Mark Williams barely played. Among Duke’s freshmen, only Jaemyn Brakefield surprised, putting up 11 points in 15 minutes under the rim.
You can’t blame an empty Cameron Indoor Stadium for any of this; the Champions Classic is in any other year a neutral-court affair, without the students hanging over the court, although the aura of an NBA arena may bring out the best in players serving their year in college before jumping to that level.
The lack of a crowd presence may have played a role in the early going Tuesday, when Michigan State couldn’t buy a shot, kept throwing the ball away and fouled so often Duke was in the bonus before 10 minutes had elapsed. (Somewhere, a Duke student was no doubt screaming “five fouls, three points” at a television set while his parents readied a tranquilizer dart.) Perhaps that would have brought the Cameron Crazies into full throat, baying for more chaos, diverting the course of events. Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered.
Either way, Tom Izzo’s first win at Duke -- and his first since his Spartans denied Williamson and Barrett a trip to the Final Four that seemed inevitable -- came under these odd circumstances, in a quiet Cameron and against a young Duke team that unlike so many other young Duke teams before it, played to its age.
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 10:23 PM.
