Duke men's basketball closes exhibition slate with Livingstone

The Blue Devils may have just hung their banner, but once again they will have to take on another team that knows how to win.

No. 5 Duke finishes exhibition play against two-time defending Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association champions Livingstone Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Blue Devils enter their final tune-up game a little banged up after sophomore guard Grayson Allen tweaked his left ankle and junior Matt Jones suffered a groin injury in Friday’s exhibition opener against Florida Southern.

In the 112-68 win against the Moccasins, freshman guard Derryck Thornton rebounded with a turnover-free, team-high 22 points after a sluggish debut at Countdown to Craziness Oct. 17. Thornton and fellow classmates Brandon Ingram and Luke Kennard combined for 52 points in their first game against outside competition.

“Just playing with our guys is probably the best feeling in the world,” Ingram said after Friday’s win. “When we get in practice, we’re very physical, so we’re ready for games like that, we’re ready to be physical with those guys. When we come in, we’re ready for it.”

In last year’s meeting between the Blue Devils and Blue Bears, the Livingstone frontcourt had no answer for Jahlil Okafor, other than sending him to the foul line consistently. Four Blue Bears finished with four fouls and a fifth fouled out. Although Duke does not return Okafor, Livingstone lost all three of its centers to graduation, which should result in another physical contest for the Blue Devil bigs.

The Blue Bears lost six seniors but return many upperclassmen, including senior guard Eric Dubose, who averaged 14.7 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game last season. Dubose and senior Ty Newman—who shot 48.6 percent from beyond the arc last year—were named to the Boxtorow Preseason All-CIAA team. Newman hopes to learn from his 12 minutes of action against Duke last year, when he committed four fouls, shot 3-of-4 from the field and tied the team-high with five rebounds.

For the Blue Devil freshmen, Wednesday will be a final chance to acclimate to the Cameron confines, which several players admitted was a bit overwhelming at first. It will also be an opportunity for Allen to bounce back from a 3-of-9 shooting performance against Florida Southern. Allen has the athleticism to take advantage of the Blue Bears’ inexperienced interior, but he did not look himself in transition in the exhibition opener.

“The only thing that’s slowing him up right now is the fact that he’s missed three weeks of conditioning, and he has to be careful as he comes back,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski during his team’s media day on Oct 6. “He plays so hard and so competitively that you want to make sure that there’s not an injury and that he’s not trying to get back to full speed too soon.”