With about nine minutes to go in Tuesday’s game against Findlay, freshman Mason Plumlee stood with the ball in Oiler territory and casually tossed it toward Nolan Smith. Showing quick reflexes, Findlay’s Nick Coon snatched the lazy pass out of the air and went up for what appeared to be an easy layup. No one was near the 6-foot-3 guard.
As the ball left Coon’s hands, Plumlee leaped at him, knocking the ball into press row with a thunderous block that blew the roof of Cameron Indoor Stadium.
That one play didn’t really matter in the overall context of the game. But it did show how the Blue Devils had played all night—there was nothing pretty about it. But it got the job done.
“The team could have played better,” Kyle Singler said. “Findlay was a pretty good team, but for me, we could have been better.”
Duke overcame a slow start to score 48 second-half points in an 84-48 dismantling of the reigning Division II champions. But potentially the biggest story to come from the game was not the 20 points from Singler or the eight combined blocks from the Plumlee brothers, who dominated in the paint over their much smaller opponents.
Rather, it was the absence of point guard Nolan Smith for the first half. The junior could do nothing but sit on the bench and watch as the Blue Devils amassed 10 turnovers and shot only 39.4 percent without him. He rode the pine as a trial for Duke’s first two regular season games of the year, when Smith will be unavailable due to a suspension from playing in a non-sanctioned basketball league this summer, head coach Mike Krzyzewski confirmed after the game.
He will miss Duke’s contests against UNC-Greensboro Nov. 13 and Coastal Carolina Nov. 16.
“We wanted to play the first half without Nolan because he’s going to miss a few ballgames, so we could get a dry run of how we need to play during those games,” Krzyzewski said. “[He] played in a summer league that wasn’t sanctioned. It’s a very common occurrence…. We brought it up [to the NCAA].”
Without Smith, Duke trotted out a huge lineup to start the game—Jon Scheyer was the only player under 6-foot-8, and Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek and Miles Plumlee made up a towering frontcourt. A consequence of all that size, though, was a loss in speed, and the Blue Devils had trouble creating fast-break opportunities and transitioning from defense against a smaller but quicker Findlay squad. Krzyzewski said that Duke would most likely not start the same lineup for the regular season opener.
As the two teams went into the locker room, Findlay had held the Blue Devils to just 36 points, a far cry from the 61 scored in the first 20 minutes of play in the Pfeiffer exhibition last week.
“We could have done a better job offensively,” Scheyer said. “We had a few too many turnovers and bad shots, but [we were playing] a big lineup.”
With the start of the second half came an offensive explosion from Duke, or more specifically Singler, who finished as the game’s leading scorer with 20 points.
After two Miles Plumlee free throws, Singler hit two straight layups and a 3-pointer from the top of the key, kickstarting a 20-4 run for the Blue Devils that put the score at 60-27 and the game firmly in Duke’s control. The junior shot 8-of-12 from the field and also finished with nine rebounds and four assists.
“I thought Kyle was rushing things in the first half,” Krzyzewski said. “Then in the second half everything he did was right.”
It didn’t hurt Singler that he had a new point guard to get him the ball. Smith returned to a standing ovation from the Cameron Crazies and recorded seven points and three assists in his limited role.
“You lose the aspect of [transition offense] when Nolan’s not in the game,” Singler said. “Having him on the court just gives you a different look.”
It will be a loss that the Blue Devils will have to deal with as they play their first two real games of the season. Krzyzewski has to hope that they are ready to step up to the challenge.
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