Duke did a lot of things right Thursday night against UNC Greensboro, especially on the defensive end.
That's undeniable.
But the Blue Devils are a young team, and, at times, they looked it. Still, head coach Mike Krzyzewski wasn't going to focus on the negatives.
"I want to let my kids grow instead of nitpicking about everything and having that be the headline-'We struggled,'" Krzyzewski said. "We won by 30 points. We played our butts off. We have a good young team-give them some credit. Let them grow. Enjoy them."
Okay, here are the positives: Duke came out with a lot more energy than it did against Georgia Southern; the team played fantastic defense, especially in the first half; the Blue Devils got out and ran early, effectively turning their offense into defense; and forward Dave McClure had maybe the best game of his career.
But when Duke couldn't get out and run the fast break, the offense stagnated in the half-court. The Blue Devils turned the ball over 21 times for the game and went scoreless for nearly five minutes in the second half.
The half-court offense did look much better in the last 13 minutes of the second half. From the 13:02 mark of the period until 9:28 remained, the Blue Devils either scored or got to the line on six of seven possessions. None of those trips up the court was a fast break.
The fact remains, however, that Duke is a young team, with a slightly new offensive system and no established star player. It is only natural that the team will struggle at times.
And playing three games in five days doesn't allow for much time to work out the offensive kinks.
"The tough thing about playing so many games in a short period of time is you don't get to have hard practices where you can really run your offense and get into your offensive sets," freshman center Brian Zoubek said. "That was one of the things-we were just rusty. We haven't run it in a while. We haven't worked on it. One of the other things was that we were playing such hard defense that by the time we got to offense, we were a little fatigued."
Junior guard DeMarcus Nelson said some struggles should be expected as they get used to the new offensive system.
He said the offense's schemes and concepts have changed, and the Blue Devils put in several new plays. The new offense is more pro-style than last year, and floor spacing is more important. It is designed to create a lot of opportunities for Duke's young perimeter players to penetrate into the lane before either scoring or kicking the ball out for a three-point shot.
To the young team's credit, its guards were able to get into the lane frequently, and freshman guard Jon Scheyer knocked down a couple of open three-pointers when they dished the ball out. For all his coach's talk about focusing on the positive, Scheyer said he expected to work on the half-court offense at practice in the next few days.
"We feel like our offense is going to come around a little slower because it takes time, takes rhythm, takes players continuing to know each other," Nelson said. "There's room for improvement."
For now, they're looking good enough-Duke fans can enjoy watching them get better.
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