It’s November 14, and Duke is playing its second game of the season against Bryant, trying to incorporate a new cast of characters into a roster that bears little resemblance to the one that brought home a national championship just seven months prior.
Freshman Derryck Thornton is tasked with initiating the offense, but takes a while to call out an offensive set. One of the few Blue Devil veterans remaining on the team, graduate student captain Marshall Plumlee, raised his voice to get things moving, yelling something that was part helping hand, part urgent frustration.
"What do you want?"
The Blue Devils finally got their offense going in a 113-75 blowout, continuing to get their inexperienced floor general acclimated to the speed and pressure of the college game.
“The point guard position's a really tough position to play, especially at Duke,” Plumlee said after that game. “I'm really proud of how Derryck's been getting better every day in practice and in games. In that particular play, I just wanted to make sure we were set in a play and trying to help him out."
In the one-and-done era, freshmen have come to dominate college basketball just months after playing in high school and are now expected to adapt to a much faster, more physical game without any semblance of a hitch. But only a select few players whose talent and athleticism transcend age can pull off this feat. For the rest, it takes time to adjust.
Thornton's work was cut out for him even before he got to Durham. He committed to the Blue Devils just 15 days after Tyus Jones' 23-point performance helped Duke capture the national title. Jones declared for the NBA soon after, leaving the Blue Devils with no star point guard and no veteran floor general to guide Thornton in his development.
Still, Thornton has worked his way into the starting lineup on a young squad and has delivered some nifty plays off the dribble throughout the season. But after reclassifying to come to Duke—essentially playing up a year with older, more experienced players—the Chatsworth, Calif., native heads into the postseason still searching for the consistent, complete game that separates seasoned players from rookies.
Thornton finished the regular season averaging 7.6 points, 2.5 assists and 1.7 turnovers per game and struggled with his shot throughout ACC play, scoring fewer than 10 points in all but one of Duke’s conference contests on 35.0 percent shooting. He capped off the regular season with three points against North Carolina and did not notch a single assist in just 15 minutes—his fewest minutes since a two-point performance against Notre Dame Jan. 16.
Although the offense has not always been there, Thornton has delivered important contributions on the other end of the court. He has faced off against some of the most seasoned and talented point guards in college basketball—from Kentucky’s Tyler Ulis to Virginia’s London Perrantes and Tar Heel Marcus Paige—and kept up with them all.
"Ever since I was young, my dad stressed to me how important defense was," Thornton said before the season began. "If you score and then lock down your defender, you’re going to win. It’s not all about offense. I really think that basketball starts on defense."
When Duke hosted N.C. State Feb. 6, Thornton was tasked with containing the most proficient scorer in the ACC in Anthony "Cat" Barber. The freshman held him to just nine points on 3-of-6 shooting from the floor in the first half, staying in front of him and not letting him get open looks in the lane. Although Barber came alive for 17 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field in the final 20 minutes, Thornton was only responsible for guarding him during select stretches of that period.
The Blue Devils then entered their toughest four-game stretch of the season, which for Thornton meant a murderer's row of standout point guards. After scoring four points in a win against Louisville Feb. 8, Thornton was matched up with Perrantes—the ACC's most accurate 3-point shooter at 50.8 percent—who did not even attempt a 3-pointer and just scored eight points in his 39 minutes in a one-point Duke win.
If Thornton's defensive contributions had not been celebrated to this point in the season, they took center stage when the Blue Devils traveled down Tobacco Road to take on then-No. 5 North Carolina. Sophomore Grayson Allen's two free throws with just more than a minute remaining put Duke up by one, and after the two sides exchanged misses, the Tar Heels had one more opportunity to pull ahead. On the game's final play, the ball fell into the hands of sophomore guard Joel Berry II, who tried to chuck up a last-ditch effort over Thornton, but the young guard responded with a stifling block to secure the Blue Devil upset.
"Either he’s going to make it or I’m going to get a stop, so I really put everything on the line to stop him," Thornton said.
Three days later, Thornton fell awkwardly on his right shoulder in a loss at Louisville, but returned late in the game to play through the pain and briefly trimmed the Cardinal lead to two.
As Jones showed last season, guard play is crucial when the postseason rolls around. If the Blue Devils want to make a run at the ACC tournament crown, the likeliest path rolls through Barber and the Wolfpack on Wednesday, Demetrius Jackson and Notre Dame on Thursday, Paige and the Tar Heels on Friday and either Perrantes' Cavaliers or Angel Rodriguez and Miami on Saturday, meaning Thornton will again have to step up his game—this time with everything on the line.
“Derryck has just seen a constant improvement,” Krzyzewski said. “A lot of times, you see the more improvement in a really good player when you’re in conference because he’s playing against Georgia Tech and a fifth-year player, a senior or a fifth-year player. You’re playing against Barber, who’s one of the best players in America. You’re playing against Perrantes, you’re playing against Snyder from Louisville. You’re playing against really good people and that brings out more. But he’s done a really good job, a really really good job for us, and keeps getting better, so hopefully we can see that continue."
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