The last two pre-ACC warm-up games saw more progress being made. UNC-Greensboro was probably the weakest opponent Duke has faced all season, but the Devils gave up 69 points to them.  The Spartans also shot a distressing 46%, a high mark for a team that doesn't have a lot of offensive weapons.  Still, there were several positive things to glean from this game.  Duke dominated the boards (37-21) and got some strong performances from support players.  Josh McRoberts and Martynas Pocius made great strides with rebounding and defense, respectively. Josh had 6 rebounds and continued his recent aggressive play on offense. It wasn't just throwing down dunks (though he did have 4 mind-bending slams), it was driving in for a three point play, tipping in a miss, and throwing pinpoint passes for scores.  His best play came when he blocked a shot, rebounded it and then threw an outlet to Sean Dockery in transition.  He also threw a relocation pass out to Redick for a three and into Shelden Williams for a score.  Slowly but surely, he's making himself an important part of the offense.

   Pocius' progress was especially encouraging.  Certainly, hitting 3 threes is good news for a team looking for other sources of outside shooting, but I was more impressed by the way he stood in the lane and took 2 charges.  While I love his aggressiveness on offense, he's slowly starting to understand that there are other ways to help out his team than just scoring.  Against Bucknell, he didn't score a single point (or even take a single shot), but he was dishing out 3 assists and playing solid defense.  He's getting closer and closer to locking down a permanent place in the rotation.  When Nelson gets back, that will extend the rotation to a solid eight men, which is all the team really needs.

   Back to UNC-G, it was pretty obvious that the Spartans didn't have the guns to keep up with Duke on offense, though they stayed within striking distance for quite some time.  Duke was only up by 9 nine minutes into the game, and only up by 14 with less than three minutes to go in the half.  Of course, this came after a blitzing 9-0 start that saw Duke rip off consecutive steals & runouts. Duke closed out the half with a 9-3 run that featured lob dunks from Williamsn and McRoberts, a three from Redick and a surprising rebound dunk by Eric Boateng.

    That strong first-half finish made the second half disappointing. With eight minutes to go, UNC-G cut the lead to 19 points.  Duke closed them out with an 18-4 run to end the game, but the Spartans were completely spent by then.    One could sense Duke's frustration for the game being that close, but UNC-G's top 3 players made Duke pay for every mistake: every time a hand wasn't in someone's face, or a player didn't block out, or a player brought the ball down instead of going up with it.  In that sense, this was a quite useful exercise for Duke.

    There's not much to say about the veterans here.  Redick had a ho-hum 35 points, nailing 6 threes.  Williams had his typical great showing with 21 points, 12 rebounds and 6 steals (!).   Dockery played fine defense and directed traffic well.  The continuing difficulty remains the performance of Lee Melchionni.  He got off the wrong foot in this game with 3 quick fouls, then committed a couple of ugly turnovers in the second half.  He did manage to hit 1 three.

    The team was understandably upset with their defensive play, and knew that it had to play a lot better against Bucknell.  Despite playing in the low-ranked Patriot League (which only recently has seen teams give out scholarships), the Bison have become the latest giant-killer in college basketball.  Behind star center Chris McNaughton and guard Kevin Bettencourt, they knocked off Kansas in the first round of the NCAA tournament, beat Pitt last year, went to the Carrier Dome and took care of Syracuse, and most recently defeated DePaul (a squad that beat Wake Forest).  They even gave #3 Villanova a good game before losing by double digits.  Given that Duke has struggled with this sort of mid-major this season, it looked like the game could have been a struggle.

    Instead, Duke used its superior size and speed to absolutely overwhelm the Bison in the game's early moments, blowing out to a 17-2 lead. Early on, Duke pounded the ball inside, with Williams scoring 5 points and McRoberts 4 (on two dunks, of course).  Redick nailed a three and a long jumper, and then Melchionni sank a three.  Duke kept pouring it on, with the highlight a McRoberts open court steal and circus layup, plus the foul.   When it looked like Bucknell was coming back a bit, Redick nailed 2 threes and drove baseline for a score.

   The Bison did have one ray of hope when they cut a 22 point halftime lead to 14 in the opening moments of the half.  Then Duke went to Shelden, early and often.  He scored 6 straight points as part of a 13-0 Duke run, highlighted by a Melch steal to Dockery, who then threw it up to McRoberts on a lob, who threw it down hard.  Dock finished the run with a three point play, attacking the baseline.  That made it 55-28 with 13:29 to go.

    It was all over after that, with Duke extending its lead a bit, but with the subs seeing plenty of time.  Bucknell barely scratched 30% shooting and turned it over 20 times.  Throw in a +7 on the boards, and Duke succeeded across the board.  Redick didn't even have his best game, shooting just 9-21 from the field and 2-11 from three.  The game ball here belonged to Williams, who abused Bucknell insdie for 23 points and 11 rebounds.  McRoberts also dominated with 14 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals--his first truly complete performance of the season.  Again, the dunks were nice, but the defense and passing were better.

    Dockery was also brilliant, with 10 points, 5 assists and 4 steals. He shut down Bettencourt, who shot just 2-13 from the field and had 4 turnovers.  Lee also rallied a bit in this game, especially at the defensive end.  It's one thing for a player to miss some shots--that will rarely lead Coach K to bench them.  But Lee was hurting the team with fouls and turnovers.  So he hustled to deflect passes and harass the wing, and also came up with some rebounds.   We'll see if this eventually translates to hitting some more shots, but Lee has too much experience to find himself on the bench.

   With the ACC season dawning, we'll see how ready Duke is to play, especially on the road.  It's heartening that while Williams & Redick are still dominant players, they don't have to do all of the heavy lifting.  Right now, I'd like to see Greg Paulus take a few more shots, though he's doing quite well as a playmaker.  If one's top 8 can all make shots, Duke will be a very tough team to slow down.  This team still isn't quite as good as last year's on defense, but they have gone from mediocre to good in the last couple of months.  The more the frosh improve defensively, the more players like Williams and Dockery can concentrate on making great defensive plays, rather than having to worry about someone else's man.

              Rob's Archive