INDIANAPOLIS—With 15:44 remaining the first half, Monday seemed weeks away and Duke's chances against the Spartans—let alone Kentucky or Wisconsin—were in question.
The Blue Devils had just allowed Michigan State guard Denzel Valentine to stroke his third 3-pointer of the game and trailed 14-6. The Spartans had scored 14 points in the first four minutes just twice this season—once in a December rout of Arkansas Pine-Bluff and the other in a 20-point win against Rutgers.
In that opening four-minute stretch, Michigan State knocked down four triples—Travis Trice being Valentine's partner in crime from downtown—and three of the long balls came without a Blue Devil defender's hand up. Duke looked lost on the guards, as it was not communicating on screens and in transition.
This was not the Blue Devil squad everyone had become so accustomed to seeing. But that all changed after the first media timeout.
"We were giving them good looks," Tyus Jones said. "Giving Trice and Valentine open looks—they’re going to make you pay every time for that. No matter if you’re thinking eventually they’re going to miss, you can’t keep giving them look after look. They made us pay for it and we had to make some changes."
After allowing Michigan State to open the game 5-of-7 from the field, the Blue Devils locked down from that point on, holding the Spartans to 3-of-20 shooting for the rest of the half. And it all started with some of the most unlikely names on the court for Duke.
With 14:45 remaining, Grayson Allen subbed in for Matt Jones, then with 13:15 left in the half Amile Jefferson and Marshall Plumlee relieved Cook and Okafor. With the three starters on the bench and the Blue Devils trailing by six, it would be the unheralded Duke bench that stepped up when it needed it most.
Prior to Saturday's game, Plumlee talked about how his role on the team was to provide energy off the bench, whether he scored or not. Once again, he came through for the Blue Devils. The Spartans took advantage of high pick-and-rolls against Okafor in the opening minutes, so when Plumlee came into the game, he was able to hang with the rounding Michigan State guards long enough to dissuade them from pulling up.
During the 2:25 stretch in which all three reserves were on the floor, Michigan State was 0-of-3 from the field and Duke went on a 5-0 run to climb back within one. Once the defense had been established and the Spartans had been stymied, Okafor and Cook came back on the floor. And that's when the onslaught began.
"We had to get them off the three-point line—they were 4-for-4 from three. So that time we figured we had commit," Allen said. "If we get a stop, that's even more exciting than getting a dunk on the offensive end."
After opening the game by falling behind 14-6, the Blue Devils closed the half on a 30-11 run, using a combined 17 points from Winslow and Okafor to take a 36-25 lead into halftime.
Valentine—who was far and away the Spartans' top threat with 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting and had nine minutes in the opening four minutes—scored just two points the rest of the half, forcing Michigan State to look elsewhere for production. The rest of the team was unable to deliver and shot 21.7 percent from the floor in the half.
"They did a good job of taking me away," Valentine said. "I got hot and they started denying a little bit, forcing us to take bad shots. The next thing you know, they had gotten a lead."
Although the Blue Devils were adamant after the game that they have been confident in their defense all year, even they recognize that they have taken things to another level in the tournament.
After Duke's national semifinal performance, it has risen to No. 12 in basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy's adjusted defensive efficiency rankings. The Blue Devils entered the Big Dance at No. 57.
As much as Winslow's aggressiveness and Okafor's dominance in one-on-one matchups played a part in the rout, it was the Duke defense that the Blue Devils rode to victory. And that same Duke defense will face the ultimate test of how much it has truly improved Monday—Wisconsin boasts Pomeroy's No. 1 adjusted offensive efficiency ranking.
"We think we’ve been a good defensive team all year long," Okafor said. "We’ve only got four losses, that doesn’t come without playing good defense. We’ve definitely taken it to another level since the tournament started."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.