Georgia Tech spent most of the first half turning out the lights, and the Blue Devils spent most of the game scratching their heads, probably not recognizing themselves. Duke’s defense was a step slow and their offense was disjointed. It’s not often I’ve seen a Duke team in Cameron let a team shoot closer to 70% than 50%, and if not for a few heat checks that would inevitably miss, Damon Stoudamire’s team would have shot over 70% from the field in that first stanza. Whenever it seemed like Duke had it all figured out, the Yellow Jackets had an answer: They went up by as much as 6 points early thanks to Kowacie Reeves Jr.’s 23 points. in the first half. The Yellow Jackets shot a blistering 67.9% from the field and 55.6% from 3 in that first half, while the Blue Devils struggled, shooting just 36.7% from the field and 30% from 3. Duke boasted two double-digit scorers in the half, with Cam Boozer going 4-8 for 11 points and Isaiah Evans adding 10. The saving grace in that first half for the Blue Devils were the extra possessions from Georgia Tech turnovers, a 5-0 edge in second-chance points and an 11-to-0 edge in free throws. Jon Scheyer’s team was fortunate that a four-point halftime deficit was not greater.
Duke came into its own more in the second half, still not the efficient, strong defense they showed early in the season, but the game was still within reach. A switch to zone defense, which Scheyer called a desperation move, seemed to throw the Yellow Jackets out of their rhythm on several possessions. The Blue Devils regained the lead, 56-54, thanks to two free throws from Nikolas Khamenia, and extended the lead to five with a three-point play from Cameron Boozer. Duke’s defense held Georgia Tech without a made field goal for nearly seven minutes, an 0-for-10 stretch from the field, allowing the Blue Devils to maintain their lead. A transition triple from Foster grew Duke’s lead to its largest of the night, 70-63, and forced a Georgia Tech timeout with 8:10 remaining. The Yellow Jackets pulled within one possession, 75-73, on a triple with less than five minutes to play. A mid-range jumper from Cayden Boozer made it a five-point game, 80-75, with less than 90 seconds to play. Cameron Boozer and Evans were perfect from the charity stripe in the final 30 seconds to seal an 85-79 win.
Cam Boozer did his thing, scoring 26 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. Isaiah Evans, despite not shooting well from beyond the arc, added 17 points and went 7-7 from the free throw line. In his first Blue Devils start, Cayden Boozer scored 13 points and added 3 assists. Caleb Foster and Patrick Ngongba rounded out the double-digit scoring for Duke with 12 and 11 respectively, with Foster adding a team-high 4 assists. The main areas of concern for the Blue Devils after this game are a defense that is clearly struggling to get stops and a lack of solid free throw shooting, with the Blue Devils finishing the night below 70% from the charity stripe for the 8th time in 13 games.
Jon Scheyer has mastered the art of not throwing his team under the bus, as some coaches choose to do, but there was clearly a hint of disappointment in his tone after the game. He will always challenge himself to do better to get his team ready and even with the mitigating factors of long absences, there are times when the coach clearly failed to recognize the effort and execution he has come to expect from his side. Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, this is the third time in a row that such questions have arisen and now that they are in the middle of the ACC season, it will be interesting to see how this team responds. Over the last three games, there hasn’t been a single part of the game that you can point to and say to yourself, “This Duke team really has an advantage here.” As the schedule normalizes, the hope is that repetition will bring some more consistency for Duke, because this isn’t the ACC of last year and losses, like life, can come at you quickly.
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