Duke went up to West Point for a Veteran’s Day matchup and after the feel-good stuff with former Coach Mike Krzyzewsksi and his former school, the Blue Devils put a hurting on the Cadets, 114-59.
In the first half, Army did an effective job of limiting Cameron Boozer’s touches and of Duke’s 35 attempts, 22 were threes. The Devils shot 16-35 overall.
Army played valiantly, as you’d expect, but the talent differential was just too much.
Duke had runs of 11-0, 12-0 and 17-0, and while Boozer was limited
to 15 points, other Devils stepped up. Dame Sarr had 13 in the first half, finishing with 19. Isaiah Evans racked up 17, Patrick Ngongba got 16, Darren Harris had 15 and Cameron Boozer 10.
It wasn’t an even contest, to be sure, but as we saw against Western Carolina, Duke played hard.
The Blue Devils finished hitting 37-65/16-37 for 56.9 % overall and 43.2 percent from deep.
There was a lot to like in this one. Boozer is going to find himself the focus of defenses all season, and while his teammates could have done a better job of getting him the ball, he still got near a double-double with 9 boards to go with his 15 points. What may get overlooked is that he’s making some brilliant outlet passes. Like everything else he does, Boozer’s outlet passes are basically clinical. The fundamentals are just gorgeous.
We also saw Sarr hit a new level. There’s no question that he needs to be stronger, but he got to the rim effectively tonight and hit 3-5 from behind the line. He took a major step forward.
Duke has a raft of mid-sized guys who can run and jump. Aside from Sarr, Evans, Harris, Nik Khamenia and Cayden Boozer can all get out and go – and when they do, Boozer, and to a lesser degree, Ngongba and Maliq Brown, can hit them with the outlet.
Boozer is the best though. He’s a highly skilled player, but he was dropping passes right over the defense into the hands of streaking teammates. It was beautiful to see.
Speaking of Brown, he’s back to his old tricks. On one particular play, he disrupted Army consistently and in various ways, to the point where they couldn’t get a shot off. He didn’t do that by himself obviously, but the guy is a savant. He consistently cut them off, forced the ball where he wanted it to go and generally frustrated Army to a high degree.
It’s nice to see him rounding into form. He’s not where he will be, but he’s getting there.
In the last two games, Cayden Boozer has really come on. He scored 14 against Western Carolina and 10 at Army. Assists? He had 5 and 8. He had 7 boards against the Catamounts and 2 against Army. He’s coming on fast.
We’re seeing more from Khamenia too. He’s a clever player, and fierce. We’ve seen the ferocity more than the clever, but he’s starting to show his skills, too. He had 6 rebounds at West Point to go with his 8 points.
To be clear, if Army had won, it would have been a massive upset. They have the heart, but not the talent. Realistically, there wasn’t a path for them to win and they aren’t on the same level as Duke is.
Even so, Duke has now played five competitive games, two exhibitions and three legit, on the record contests. And we’re seeing a lot of growth. Cameron Boozer is going to be the focus, but with everyone else contributing, focusing on him so much may not work as well going forward.
Our guess is that Jon Scheyer would rather his team not shot as much outside and that he’s at least somewhat concerned that Army was able to defend Duke so well inside.
However, he coaches tremendous three point shooters in Evans, Harris and Cameron Boozer, and you can add Sarr and Khamenia to that now. And the better the three point shooting is, the harder it’ll be to shut down Boozer, Ngongba and Brown inside.
Notes – Duke assisted on 25 of 37 baskets…Duke tried some different looks again, with Foster and Cayden Boozer in together and different combinations of bigs…speaking of bigs, Boozer and Ngongba had 4 assists each…Army shot just 30.9 % overall and 24.5 % from deep…Jackson had 20 points to pace the Cadets…Cayden Boozer picked up four fouls but no one else had more than two…
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