Duke Blows Wofford Out, 86-35
Other than scoring 85 points, Tony Bennett must be so jealous.
Wofford won the tip against Duke and scored the first basket but after that, it was all Duke.
The Blue Devils won 86-35 and arguably, it wasn’t that close, which you can tell to an extent by some statistical anomalies: Cooper Flagg had just eight points, Khaman Maluach had just one rebound and Isaiah Evans was the second leading scorer with 14 points in just 12 minutes. Kon Knueppel wasn’t particularly effective offensively either.
We could go on, but you probably get the point.
Here are the stats that matters most: Wofford only hit 14-57 shots overall (24.6 percent), just five of 33 (15.2 percent), and several of those came in garbage time. The Terriers were also hounded into 19 turnovers and were out rebounded 43-29. And here’s one you won't see in the stat sheet: they had at least four shot clock violations.
Duke is on a different level, true, but all in all, the Blue Devils clamped down on defense in a big way. Remember that Maine scored 62 points and Army hard 58.
And this is nice too: it’s the first game that Jon Scheyer had all his players available. Yes, Patrick Ngongba played and we saw a guy who has good footwork first of all, but who repeatedly demonstrated a knack for tipping a rebound to a teammate. He did it often enough that it wasn’t an accident. It’s a skill. And in general, he’s an alert and smart passer. He’s going to be fun to watch.
More good news: Duke hit just four threes against Kentucky. In this one, they hit 16-38 (42.1 percent). They also hit 90.9 percent from the line (10-11).
Some other points: people will look at this and say, well Flagg only had eight points, which is objectively true. However, this diminishes his overall impact. He rebounded well, with nine, had six assists, three steals and two blocks. He also did a lot of other things that won’t show up, like leading the break, cutting off driving lanes and so forth.
All in all, even though Wofford wasn’t a serious threat, it was a good chance to work on some things, not least of all before the upcoming visit to Tucson to take on the Arizona Wildcats.
Notes & observations...35 points is the best defensive result since the shot clock came in...Maluach has been a great rebounder so far but just one? Strange...he’s an imposing shot blocker but he doesn’t have the instincts an American kid has...but on the other hand, he tends to have his hand up and while he doesn’t chase blocks, he also doesn’t foul reaching for a block he’s not sure he can get...Duke assisted on 24 of 30 made shots...Sion James played and had no obvious issues from his shoulder injury suffered during the Kentucky game...we kind of missed this: Ngongba had five offensive rebounds in 11 minutes...wow!!!
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- Cooper Flagg Tracker: Duke star freshman forward stuffs the stat sheet in blowout win over Wofford
- 5 observations from No. 6 Duke men’s basketball’s first half against Wofford
- Quite the bounceback: Three takeaways from Duke basketball’s domination of Wofford
- MBB: Blue Devils Blitz Wofford, 86-35
- Box Score (PDF)
- Postgame Notes (PDF)
- Duke Quotes (PDF)
- Opponent Quotes (PDF)