Duke beat a limited Kansas team in the Champions Classic in New York,but it wasn’t a perfect game by any means.
In the first part of the first half, Kansas did exactly what it needed to in the absence of star
freshman Darryn Peterson – the Jayhawks turned Duke over and got out in transition, which made up for their generally poor shooting.
Kansas jumped out to a 20-15 lead and then were up 26-20 before Duke made a move. Dame Sarr scored to make it 28-26 with 5:18 to go in the first half then Cameron Boozer tied the game 28-28 at the line with 4:42 to go. Patrick Ngongba broke a 30-30 tie with a foul shot and Duke never trailed again.
Toss in some first half foul trouble as Flory Bidunga, Bryson Tiller and Tre White all picked up two personals each. This cost Kansas dearly, especially White, who had 15 points in the first half before he was forced to the bench.
Incidentally, here’s a great bit of trivia: if we’re not mistaken, we think that White is the first player to lose to Duke three straight years at three different schools – Louisville, Illinois and now Kansas (White was an Illini last season as Duke utterly annihilated Illinois, also in the Garden. You wonder how much White thought about that as he lit Duke up in the first half).
Ultimately, though Kansas did exactly what Bill Self wanted them to do early, Duke put together a 17-5 run to get some separation.
In the second half, though the Blue Devils were still imperfect, Duke was the better team and more foul trouble for Bidunga and Tiller spelled doom for a gutty Kansas team.
The Blue Devils built a 10 point lead, 51-41, with 16:32 to play, but the Jayhawks never gave up. Kansas cut the lead to 67-64 with 4:59 left to play.
Foul trouble came back into play though: Bidunga picked up his third with 13:57 to play and his fourth with 7:28 and Tiller picked up three more to foul out, his last two coming at 6:08 and 3:04 respectively.
When he drew his fourth foul, Duke was up 63-59 and when he fouled out, the Devils were up 72-64.
You have to give Kansas a lot of credit because the team they put out was flawed. Melvin Council made the three that cut Duke’s lead to 67-64 – and it was the first three he hit this season. He took another a few minutes later and missed badly.
Bidunga (7-10) and White (7-13) shot well but no one else did. Council was 6-15, Tiller was 2-8, Kohl Rosario 2-7 and Jayden Donovan was 2-6. KU only got 5 points from the bench, all from Dawson.
Despite the struggles, Kansas was in this game late. They just really need Peterson to succeed.
For Duke, it was another slow start but the Blue Devils had some really good signs. Cameron Boozer got a solid double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds. He also had 5 assists. Isaiah Evans finished with 16 points and showed a lot of aggression. Patrick Ngongba had 13 points and 7 boards. Dame Sarr had just 6 points and 4 rebounds, but he played well overall. Caleb Foster finished with 7 points, 3 boards and 1 assist.
Duke got 18 points off the bench and 10 rebounds. We saw Maliq Brown do his normal things – when he first came in, he was immediately and immensely disruptive. However, we also saw new things from Nik Khamenia, who is growing increasingly comfortable and Cayden Boozer, who found his way to the basket and who had 7 points, 4 assists and 3 rebounds. He also scored twice in the second half when Kansas was trying to push back into the game: with Kansas cutting Duke’s lead to just 54-49, Boozer hit a shot and then a layup sandwiched around a Council basket to push Duke’s lead to 58-51.
Duke also hammered the Jayhawks on the boards, 41-30 overall and 13-8 offensive .
And best of all, after 6 first half turnovers that allowed Kansas to score easy baskets, Duke had just 2 in the second half.
It might have been a different game had Peterson played, but we’ll never know. What we do know is that Kansas presented a challenge, as expected, and Duke rose to that challenge. This game will pay dividends down the road.
