When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And the Blue Devils did—for a while, at least.
But after multiple games in Duke’s back-loaded ACC scheduled required unbelievable displays of grit to pull out upsets down the stretch, the Blue Devils have gotten tired and subsequently faltered—dropping two of their last three matchups.
Now, No. 17 Duke looks to get back on track with a win against a struggling Wake Forest squad at Cameron Indoor Stadium Tuesday at 8 p.m. The Blue Devils are coming off a disappointing 14-point loss on the road against a hungry and desperate Pittsburgh team that set the pace of the game from the start by dominating the paint. The Demon Deacons also lost Sunday, falling to Virginia Tech 81-74, and haven't captured a road win in the ACC since Jan. 22, 2014.
“[Pittsburgh] came out and played a lot better than us,” sophomore Grayson Allen said after Sunday's loss. “They were the hungrier team. They just wanted it more than us so it’s all the credit to them. They killed us on the boards. They were crashing the glass and they just wanted it more there.”
The Blue Devils (21-8, 10-6 in the ACC) struggled against the Panthers’ length in Sunday’s upset. Pittsburgh outrebounded Duke 39-20 and held the entire Blue Devil roster to just six points in the paint. Redshirt senior captain Marshall Plumlee was unable to put any points on the board and only secured four rebounds throughout the contest.
Despite Plumlee’s lackluster performance against the Panthers, a bounce-back effort from him will go a long way in ensuring Duke’s success in Tuesday’s matchup. The last time the in-state foes met Jan. 6, the Warsaw, Ind., native scored a then-career high 18 points on 7-of-7 shooting from the floor. The big man also notched two blocks and brought down seven rebounds as the Blue Devils pulled away from the Demon Deacons and earned a 91-75 victory.
Although the final score from the first matchup suggests a blowout, Wake Forest forward Devin Thomas dominated Duke in the early going and kept his team in the game until late in the second half. The senior is averaging 15.7 points and 10.0 rebounds on the season—one of just three players in the conference to average a nightly double-double—but scored 21 points and pulled in 12 rebounds in the teams’ last meeting on the Demon Deacons’ home court. However, Thomas has struggled mightily at Cameron Indoor Stadium in the past, recording his only two career scoreless ACC games at the historic venue.
If the Blue Devils want to keep Thomas' woes at Cameron going, they are going to have to provide a much better effort on the interior and the glass than they did Sunday.
“I love my team but I didn’t love the way we competed today,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Our guys have done a great job this year, but that was an out-of-character game for them.”
With Wake Forest (11-18, 2-15) consumed with stifling Plumlee’s production in the paint, guards Grayson Allen, Luke Kennard and Brandon Ingram were granted free range of the perimeter in January. Allen knocked down 7-of-8 shots from the field—including 3-of-4 from downtown—for a game-high 24 points. Kennard followed suit with 23 points of his own off 64 percent shooting from the floor, and Ingram added a quiet 17 points, five rebounds and four blocks in the victory against the Demon Deacons.
Wake Forest will counter on the perimeter with senior Codi Miller-McIntyre, who has notched 20 or more points in each of Wake Forest’s last two meetings with Duke. He will be joined in the starting backcourt by freshman Bryant Crawford—who scored just a single point in the team's first meeting but has taken control of head coach Danny Manning's offense with 13.5 points and a team-high 4.4 assists per game.
“We need to move on, because this schedule’s tough,” Krzyzewski said Sunday. “We’ve got to get back on the horse and ride it the proper way Tuesday night.”
Krzyzewski will look to his oldest and most experienced player in Plumlee to shake off his performance at Pittsburgh and lead Duke to a much-needed homecoming victory before hosting rival No. 8 North Carolina Saturday evening for its final game of the regular season. The Blue Devils are currently tied for fifth in the conference standings with Notre Dame—which effectively becomes a tie for the No. 4 seed and final double-bye in the ACC tournament due to Louisville's postseason ban—but would lose a head-to-head tiebreaker with the Fighting Irish thanks to a 95-91 loss Jan. 16.
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