Duke beat Western Carolina handily Saturday afternoon – Duke was supposed to win handily and did, winning 95-54 – but there was a lot to like about this game, starting with effort.
Duke played hard. There
was no lack of effort from anyone. From the top of the roster to the bottom, the effort was outstanding as was, for the most part, the defense.
The Catamounts took a 4-0 lead 18:24 in, then didn’t get to 6 points until the 15:49 mark. It took until 8:55 to hit their second basket (first points were on free throws) and by that point it was 25-9 and the game was essentially over.
Duke never played like it was over.
There were a lot of mistakes, which is no great surprise for a young team two games in, but those were just errors in judgement mostly. This Duke team is playing hard.
This was most obvious on a play where Cayden Boozer knocked a ball loose, someone else knocked it downcourt where Western Carolina picked it up, and then Darren Harris dove to knock the ball out of the WCU player’s hands and out of bounds.
Pete Rose would have been impressed. That was a superb hustle play all around – and the game was for all intents and purpose over. It would be human nature to relax, but Duke really didn’t.
Cameron Boozer had another tremendous game with 25 points, eight rebounds and five assists. He hit 53.3 percent of his shots, including 4-9 on threes.
Patrick Ngongba also played well, with 10 points, seven rebounds, two assists and a steal.
Isaiah Evans played hard like everyone else and has shown much more willingness to drive. He only scored 7 points but last year he was pretty much a three point shooter. Now he’s a different player.
Caleb Foster also played well, grabbing six rebounds and passing out four assists to go with his 9 points.
Of the starter, only Dame Sarr struggled. He has immense speed but like we saw at Texas, he got out ahead of people and couldn’t convert. He’s a wonderful talent, but doesn’t seem to have fully adjusted to U.S. basketball yet.
Maliq Brown is rounding back into form. He got 17 minutes off the bench and had two highly impressive blocks from behind. He finished with 10 points and four rebounds, but as always, you can’t fully measure his worth with stats. Among other things, he’s a brilliant passer and can really get the ball where it needs to go.
Nik Khamenia is becoming a much more credible offensive threat. He hit for 8 here with 4 rebounds.
Cayden Boozer had his best game, counting the exhibitions, with 14 points, 7 boards and 5 assists. He also had 2 steals.
Harris had just 5 points but his effort was inspiring. That guy has really become a terror.
Jack Scott got in late and showed he has some game too. Nothing dramatic, but you know it when you see it. He’s got a little something.
Iffy Ufochukwu got in as well and he’s agile enough and can be useful on defense. He was kind of timid on his one shot attempt though.
In general, there is a lot to clean up on offense, but that’s no big surprise. It’s a young team with primarily freshmen and sophomores. It’s going to take a while for everything to sort out. And Sarr needs to learn how to take it hard to the basket. He’s got tremendous natural speed but if Jon Scheyer told him he was being soft when he attacks the basket, we wouldn’t argue.
All things considered though, this was a solid outing for the second game of the season. Duke gets a trip to Army next and then a visit from Indiana State before getting a match with Kansas.
Notes – the best thing about this game was the effort…when you’re rolling over a team and you are still playing harder than they are, that’s a really good sign…How highly regarded is Cam Boozer? Highly enough that 8 rebounds is seen as sub-par…between Boozer, Brown and Khamenia, who hasn’t really shown this aspect of his game yet, Duke has some of the best passing frontcourt players around…we got a glimpse of Duke with Foster and Cayden Boozer on the court at the same time and they looked like they could easily play together…Duke shot 46.9 percent overall, 31.3 percent from behind the line and 75.8 percent from the free throw line…Evans and Foster each had just 1 rebound against Texas…both had 6 against the Catamounts…
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