CHICAGO -- For almost all of this short season, coach Mike Krzyzewski has said his Duke team needed to exert more emotion and floor leadership, a void that was left with the graduation of Shane Battier last year.
He even criticized his players publicly to the media for their entire lack of effort in these categories during Sunday's blowout in Portland.
Whether it was the public humiliation, or possibly a more private tongue lashing, the young Blue Devils certainly got the message loud and clear during Tuesday's 80-62 drubbing of Iowa as part of the annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
But the score was no indication of the level of play from both sides exhibited in the United Center Tuesday. From the get go, the Blue Devils and Hawkeyes appeared to be in a continual battle of who could dive for more loose balls, draw more charges, and play better defense. Despite the heavily partisan Iowa (4-2) crowd, Duke (5-0) managed to win out.
"I thought we played well against an emotionally charged Iowa team, and you have to play real well [against them] in order to win," Krzyzewski said.
The game started on a rather dull note for both teams, as neither could really pull away. Whenever the Hawkeyes would grab the lead--their biggest one came by five with 10:52 in the second half--Duke would immediately respond. More than halfway through the first half, the game was deadlocked at 19-19, but then the Blue Devils stepped up their defense and Iowa subsequently went ice cold.
"They didn't shoot well and that helped us," Krzyzewski said. "I thought we played good defense, but they're not going to go 2-for-16 from three-point range often."
The turnaround came, as it has all season for the Blue Devils, in a late-half run that ended when Mike Dunleavy buried a three-pointer with 7.9 seconds left on the clock. Iowa could not respond in the time remaining, and instead of going into the locker room down six, the Hawkeyes found themselves on the verge of a double-digit deficit.
Dunleavy, Jason Williams and Carlos Boozer came out shooting in the second half and the lead quickly mushroomed from a measly nine to an overwhelming 17 points in three minutes. While Dunleavy was busy with his usual task--a little bit of everything--Boozer was shutting down his former USA Select teammate and major Hawkeye scoring threat Reggie Evans. Williams, meanwhile, had been moved to the two slot, for the most part, while Duhon took over at the point, where the sophomore managed to tally 11 assists. Williams finished with 25 points and combined with Dunleavy and Boozer to outscore Iowa 65-62.
"I thought we got beat by three guys tonight," Iowa coach Steve Alford said. "It happened to be a night where [Luke] Recker and [Reggie] Evans had their toughest nights of the year. When your two go-to-guys have tough nights and their go-to-guys have big nights, the outcome is going the way it was."
Alford also noted that Iowa's biggest problem on the night was its inability to run with Duke and finish in transition. He said his team was "still shooting the ball way to quickly off one pass."
As a result of both the Hawkeyes' inexperience and Duke's defense, Alford's theory especially showed with their star, Recker, who constantly missed much-needed long-range bombs that could have fired up the crowd and put his team back in the game.
"Right now they're better than us, no doubt about that," Recker said. "I don't know if they're 18 points better than us--I don't think they are--but they're a great basketball team. There's a reason they were national champions last year, and there's a reason they're number one in the country this year."
After a rapid five games to open their season, the Blue Devils have a few days off before they begin their quest to six-peat as ACC regular-season champions in Cameron Indoor Stadium against Clemson Dec. 2.
"I thought our kids did a heck of a job," Krzyzewski said. "We Ove been on a five games in nine days Osee the world tour.' I call these energy cycles. Now were going to take a day off and start another one."
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