How Duke basketball regained its mojo on defense after getting ‘punked’ in loss at UNC
Saturday began and ended the same in the ACC, with North Carolina and Duke filing the top two spots in the league standings.
The only reason they are aligned that way is because of what happened two Saturdays earlier, when the Tar Heels beat the Blue Devils, 93-84, at the Smith Center.
That’s why No. 7 UNC (20-6, 12-3 ACC) is a half-game ahead of No. 9 Duke (20-5, 11-3 ACC).
But, as Duke’s Jeremy Roach said after his team’s 76-67 win at Florida State on Saturday, maybe it’s because of that setback to their bitter rival that the Blue Devils are playing so well these days.
“Leaving Chapel Hill, we had a bad taste in our mouth, just not playing physical,” Roach said. “We kind of thought they punked us a little. But we wanted to change the narrative, get back to what we do with Duke-style defense.”
The Blue Devils are on a four-game winning streak since that Feb. 3 loss at UNC. They’ve won 15 of their last 17 games.
No team has scored as many points against Duke this season as UNC did that day. That nine-point margin of defeat is four points more than any other Duke loss this season.
Over this four-game winning streak, albeit against no team of UNC’s caliber, Duke has allowed 63.5 points per game. The only team to score more than 67 points was Wake Forest, a likely NCAA tournament team, when the Blue Devils won 77-69 last Monday.
Duke is offering a new narrative.
“All we need to do is play defense,” Blue Devils freshman guard Jared McCain said Saturday. “It sounds simple but when we play tough, we play with some grit and we just play our defense all connected out there, like, we win. It’s simple.”
McCain provided the bulk of Duke’s offense at Florida State with a record-setting 35 points while sinking eight 3-pointers. No Duke freshman has ever made more 3-pointers in a game and only Zion Williamson has scored 35 points as a freshman for the Blue Devils.
McCain admitted it was “crazy” to think that he’s put himself in the same sentence as Williamson. But he said it’s far from crazy that Duke can play with anyone in the country if it just stays locked in defensively.
“Our talent is good enough on the offensive end,” McCain said. “It’s gonna come. We just have to play defense.”
Duke’s defense was not great at times Saturday. Part of that can be attributed to Tyrese Proctor not being in uniform. The 6-5 sophomore guard, Duke’s top perimeter defender, was back in Durham dealing with a concussion.
Florida State hit six of its first seven shots before McCain’s deluge of 3-pointers put Duke up for good, leading by 10 at halftime, and on its way to a win. The Seminoles, even after that torrid start, finished at 49.1% while making just 4 of 14 3-pointers (28.6%).
So Duke began stacking stops together. The Blue Devils had seven steals, with McCain nabbing three, to play a major role in FSU’s nine turnovers. Duke scored 21 points off those miscues.
Duke won the rebounding battle against FSU in the same manner it lost it against UNC on Feb. 3. Against the Seminoles, the Blue Devils corralled a number of loose balls and long rebounds. Back in Chapel Hill, Scheyer was not happy with how the Tar Heels did that to his team.
“I think we were tough,” Scheyer said. “I thought we were really tough throughout.”
Earlier Saturday, the NCAA men’s basketball selection committee unveiled its current top 16 seeds. UNC was No. 5 while Duke was No. 12, putting the Tar Heels as a No. 2 seed in the East Region while Duke was at No. 3 in the West Region.
When the Blue Devils left Chapel Hill after that loss two weeks earlier, the Tar Heels looked like a sure No. 1 regional seed and Duke appeared fortunate to be on the 4-seed line.
So things have tightened up.
There are still four more weeks until Selection Sunday, when the bracket comes out for good.
The Blue Devils like their chances to keep moving up but only if they can stay connected on defense as they’ve been in the last four games.
This story was originally published February 18, 2024 at 6:00 AM with the headline "How Duke basketball regained its mojo on defense after getting ‘punked’ in loss at UNC."