The Duke Blue Devils are a brand new team destined to win the NCAA National Championship. Okay, maybe not destined to win but they are certainly improved since last time we talked about them. Now 3-0 since their big loss to the now #1 ranked Arizona Wildcats, the Blue Devils have done a 180 in the areas they needed to.
Duke has played three games against ranked opponents, home to Michigan and two neutral location games against Kansas and Arizona, losing the neutral games. In the games against the Wildcats and the Jayhawks, Duke was a combined minus-15 in rebounds and were incredibly outshot on the free throw line, shooting 66 and 57 percent respectively. All of these things changed drastically in the last three games.
Since their last loss, they defeated a ranked Michigan, a newly unranked but still tough UCLA in a “neutral location” Madison Square Garden and had a game against Gardner-Webb at home that could have been considered practice. They rebounded far better, a combined plus-22 over those games, and shot far from the charity stripe. One big area of improvement was in assists. The Blue Devils passed much better going a combined plus-17 over their opponents in the three games. Compare that to the minus-10 they were in their two losses and it’s a big improvement.
Cameron Indoor Stadium is a canvas; Jabari Parker is the court; Rodney Hood is the ball and Quinn Cook is the paintbrush that creates a beautiful portrait of victory. All averaging over 30-minutes and over 14 points per game, they run the floor and are only getting better. Chemistry is forming, bonds are being made and they are making defenses look silly. Parker is making a very strong case to go first overall in the NBA draft; though I’m really hoping he stays in Krzyzewskiville another year. Wishful thinking.
With all that said it’s important to note that those three players are also the majority scorers on the team. Of Dukes 940 total points this season, Parker, Hood and Cook have 607 of them. That’s 64.5 percent of the teams point. Even though the minutes get spread out pretty evenly between the other two roster spots, the scoring is very heavy on those three. If injuries occur, this team could face a very quick downward spiral.
A positive in the game against UCLA was Rasheed Sulaimon saw more playing time. He took advantage of it, too, scoring eight points, getting six boards and four assists. Amile Jefferson also saw a big step up in production against the Bruins, which will go a long way for the Blue Devils if that continues.
Duke has two games remaining in December and both should be easy W’s. The real excitement begins on January 4th when the Blue Devils travel to South Bend to take on Notre Dame to kick off conference play. That’s when we will find out whether Duke has really made improvements or not. If they continue to play like they have recently, March could be more exciting for Blue Devils fan then we initially anticipated.
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