Duke controls offensive glass for critical second chances in marquee victory

CHICAGO—The Blue Devils’ hopes were hanging by a thread. 

With Marvin Bagley III forced out of the game due to injury and Javin DeLaurier and Wendell Carter Jr. deep in foul trouble late in the game, Duke was desperate to stay alive and keep its stars on the floor. 

But against all odds, down 75-73 to Michigan State with less than four minutes to play, the teetering Blue Devils rebounded. Twice. 

Carter scooped up a rebound on a floater that Gary Trent Jr. air-balled and slammed it home to tie the game. On the next possession, DeLaurier grabbed an offensive board off Grayson Allen’s blocked shot, dished it back to Allen, who hit a struggling—but open—Trent. The freshman knocked down his only 3-pointer in seven tries to give Duke a three-point lead—and it never looked back. 

In a game in which the Blue Devils struggled to shoot consistently and keep their top players on the floor, Duke’s dominance on the offensive boards kept it afloat and pushed it past the No. 2 team in the nation. The Blue Devils obliterated the Spartans on the offensive glass, with a 25-11 advantage en route to an 88-81 thriller of a victory in the Champions Classic. 

“I’m embarrassed, to be honest with you, that a team would get 25 offensive rebounds against us,” Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo said. “I don’t care how big they are.... Never in a million years did I think we would get outrebounded like that.”

A team with four freshmen starters that were visibly nervous at the outset didn’t look any bit its age late, making what head coach Mike Krzyzewski said was the biggest play of the game on the back of two players that played a combined 85 minutes in college last season. 

“You don’t know if the moment or the other team will defeat you. Tonight, neither did,” Krzyzewski said. “Javin’s rebound and the kick out to Gary was the biggest play. That sequence was the biggest of the game. He was 2-of-13 at the time, and he knocked it down. I like these kids a lot. I hope we can keep growing and playing this way.”

Carter was part of a strong Duke effort that forced a physical Spartan team to be outrebounded 46-34. Forwards Miles Bridges, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Nick Ward might have had their way on offense with 19 points each, but they combined for just five offensive rebounds. 

To do so, the Blue Devils leaned on a 2-3 zone for all but one possession—not the man-to-man defense that Krzyzewski usually employs. On a night when Duke shot just 39.5 percent from the field, it brought a heavy dose of the zone that it had experimented with in exhibition play and its first two regular-season contests. 

Although it didn’t work perfectly—Michigan State shot 50.8 percent from the field—it seemed to put the Blue Devils in good position to crash the boards, even with Duke’s three bigs able to play roughly just half the game on average. The Blue Devils hadn't corralled at least 25 offensive rebounds since a 2014 win against Florida State, when it had 27. 

“We can be a real good zone team because Grayson and Trevon [Duval] up top are big and have long arms, and we have size and quickness,” Krzyzewski said. 

For one of the youngest Duke teams in the 1,001-win Krzyzewski era, it was the toughest and possibly most physical test it will face until conference play. 

DeLaurier thinks it will leave them far from threadbare. 

“It was a battle for us with Marvin going down and a lot of us fighting through foul trouble,” DeLaurier said. “For us as a group, as we start our journey early in the year, we grow from it, learn from it it and keep moving forward.”

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