Welcome back, ACC. We missed you.
Sort of.
Over the last few years and especially last year, the conference has been pretty weak but in Duke’s first two games, first against Georgia Tech and then Saturday
against Florida State, two of the weaker teams in recent years played very, very well, with both giving the Blue Devils tough games.
Florida state lost 91-87 Saturday and the Seminoles were highly impressive.
Under Leonard Hamilton, FSU was always long and athletic and defended well…but how often did you look at that team and think wow, I really like that offense?
Almost never.
Under Luke Loucks, for the first time in a very long time, Florida State has a clear, crisp offensive identity. His team moves the ball well, shoots well and is well organized on that end of the court.
And the defense is still really good too.
Duke had its hands full with the ‘Noles. FSU started off the game hitting everything and particularly three pointers. They also defended well, really going after Duke sensation Cameron Boozer. FSU forced eight first-half turnovers and suppressed Duke’s shooting at least in the early going. As the half evolved though, Duke basically matched Florida State, shooting 6-14 on threes (43%) and 14-27 (52%) overall to FSU’s 8-17 (47%) and 15-27 (56%) overall.
Turnovers were dead even at 8 apiece, assists were close (12-10 Duke’s way) and rebounds were too (14-13 to Duke). Not suprisingly, the score was tied at halftime, though for at least the first 12-15 minutes, it really seemed like Florida State was the better team.
That changed after halftime, largely because Isaiah Evans heated up.
Evans shot 2-6 in the first half, all three point attempts. He finished that half with 10 points, including 4-4 from the line.
For the game, Evans finished 6-14 on threes and 8-17 overall. We’ve been impressed with his growth overall but his shot has been lacking and that’s his calling card. Well, it wasn’t lacking in Tallahassee. Evans finished with a new career high of 28. His maturation is really striking.
FSU took a lot of flexibility away from Boozer, but he just turned into a distributor, finishing with 9 assists. He had 17 points, which wasn’t bad, but less than his average of 23.5. He also had 5 rebounds and 4 steals.
Patrick Ngongba shot 4-5 and finished with 10 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists. Caleb Foster also acquitted himself well with 13 points on 4-9/3-5 shooting and he had 6 boards.
But Duke had two solid contributors off the bench.
Dame Sarr finished with 13 points on 4-5/3-4 and 3 rebounds. He still needs to be more assertive with the ball inside but overall, he was a huge help.
And so was Maliq Brown.
He didn’t score that much – just 4 points – but he had an enormous affect on the game. He contributed a lot to Duke’s ball movement and he disrupted that of Florida State.
His game is subtle and should never be measured by numbers in the box score. We don’t have access to analytics, and we’re not sure how you’d measure things like how often he forces an offense to reset, but we’re pretty sure that he is off the charts on things like that.
You wonder about statistical minutiae like this: when he touches the ball when an opponent has it, how much does the opponents shooting percentage go down?
Brown just…messes with you. On a psychological level, it’s bound to have an effect.
Our main impression from this game though is just how far FSU has come and how fast.
It wasn’t long ago that this team lost five straight and by 36, 34, 25, 8 and 28.
It hadn’t really registered, but other than that last loss, the other four were all by less each time. Toss in a better-than-expected performance at Chapel Hill and the ‘Nodles are impressive. Loucks is doing a heck of a job. This team could have fallen apart during the losing streak but they have stuck together and are going to cause problems in the ACC.
Notes – One of the best things about this game was that despite significant game pressure, Duke didn’t blink late…we didn’t think too much about Lajae Jones, but he’s better than we imagined…Clemson transfer Chauncey Wiggins shot 8-11…Robert McCray shot 7-10…Kobe MaGee came off the bench and shot 6-11…Alex Steen was seriously overmatched in this one…it’s still too early to know for sure but our sense is that the future is bright for the ‘Noles…
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