When the Blue Devils started the season without three of their most talented freshmen, many assumed Duke would not begin peaking until ACC play started.
Jayson Tatum, Harry Giles and Marques Bolden are active as conference games have arrived for the Blue Devils, but they are still looking for an identity as the obstacles keep mounting.
No. 8 Duke will host Georgia Tech Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Cameron Indoor Stadium after falling at Virginia Tech 89-75 in its first contest with junior Grayson Allen suspended. Without their second-leading scorer and top assist man, the Blue Devils one again struggled to get anything going offensively for the third straight game.
Duke assisted on just eight of its 28 field goals—well below its average of 13.4—fueling the Hokie transition attack with quick shots and ineffective possessions. After falling behind by 16 points at halftime, the Blue Devils' largest halftime deficit since 2013, in the ugly loss, Duke got more bad news Monday.
Head coach Mike Krzyzewski announced that he will undergo lower-back surgery Friday and miss about four weeks to recover—meaning Wednesday's contest will be his last for quite a while.
“We’ve played without a lot of people for a lot of the year. You’d rather have your full complement of players but that’s not an excuse,” Krzyzewski said after the Virginia Tech loss. “[Grayson] should be on the floor if he does the right things, and he didn’t do the right things, so he wasn’t on the floor.”
Entering the season, hardly anyone would have predicted that the Blue Devils (12-2, 0-1 in the ACC) would enter their second conference game behind their opponent in the league standings.
But thanks to its disruptive defense, Georgia Tech (9-4, 1-0) upset then-No. 9 North Carolina 75-63 at home Saturday. The Yellow Jackets held the normally efficient Tar Heel offense to 33.3 percent shooting and forced 20 turnovers.
Although Georgia Tech only scores 68.6 points per contest, it holds opponents to 64.8 to stay in games. Duke will look to avoid giving the Yellow Jackets momentum with another uneven offensive performance, which means getting players not named Luke Kennard going.
Although Kennard is second in the ACC in scoring at 21.4 points per game and had 34 points on 11-of-19 shooting Saturday, the Blue Devils are looking for more balance moving forward.
Graduate student Amile Jefferson is still averaging a double-double, but the Philadelphia native has struggled to make the same impact offensively that he did early in nonconference play. Part of that is likely due to a lack of touches inside, a responsibility that falls on Kennard and fellow guards Matt Jones and Frank Jackson as Duke searches for more continuity.
Against the Hokies, Jones and Jackson combined for 10 points on 5-of-17 shooting and one assist, a trend that likely cannot continue if the Blue Devils are to break out of their recent funk.
“[Virginia Tech] made us not play well and then we didn’t play well," Krzyzewski said. “We haven’t played well for three straight games and that’s disconcerting but that’s the way it is.”
Tatum has scored the ball well early in his freshman campaign with 15.8 points per contest to go along with 7.5 rebounds, but improving his 39.7-percent shooting clip could ignite Duke's offense. The Blue Devils could also do their offense a favor by getting out in transition against Georgia Tech's defense.
Duke had few opportunities to do so against Virginia Tech since Hokie guards Justin Bibbs, Justin Robinson and Seth Allen essentially lived in the paint. But against a Yellow Jacket team that tries to play through junior center Ben Lammers—who averages 14.6 points and 10.1 rebounds per game—and barely makes four 3-pointers per game, the Blue Devils will look to clamp down.
“We've got to be more connected together," Jefferson said. “Virginia Tech was connected. They were talking, they were prepared and for us, we’ve just got to stay connected and fight together.”
Around Lammers, guards Tadric Jackson and Josh Okogie and forward Quinton Stephens also average double figures, though that quartet accounts for 73.0 percent of the team's points. Okogie had a monster game against North Carolina, posting a career-high 26 points fueled by 13 free-throw attempts in the upset.
The Blue Devils will look to keep Okogie off the foul line—another factor in Saturday's loss—and find their footing before hosting Boston College Saturday. Duke has a chance to get back on track at home this week against the two teams predicted to finish at the bottom of the ACC standings, an opportunity it cannot afford to waste with top-15 road challenges against Florida State and Louisville on tap next week.
“At the end of the day it’s all about Duke winning,” Jefferson said. “We have to find a way to win games with whatever group we have out there and that’s the bottom line.”
Mitchell Gladstone contributed reporting.
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Digital Strategy Director for Vol. 115, Michael was previously Sports Editor for Vol. 114 and Assistant Blue Zone Editor for Vol. 113. Michael is a senior majoring in Statistical Science and is interested in data analytics and using data to make insights.