Duke men’s basketball will follow up its 110-67 demolition of Illinois by traveling to Florida to take on Miami. The Blue Zone previews the encounter with an overview and X-Factor:
Overview
2023-24 record: 15-17, 6-14 in the ACC
2024-25 record: 6-21, 2-14 in the ACC
Head coach: Bill Courtney (Interim)
History: Duke leads 27-9
Last meeting: 89-54 Duke, Jan. 14, 2025
Since its last meeting with Duke, Miami has failed to turn around a season that is far from expected of a program that made the Final Four just two seasons ago. After losing head coach Jim Larrañaga in December, the Hurricanes have not found any grip within the ACC. They are alone at the bottom of the ladder, likely to be one of the first three teams in conference history to miss the ACC tournament. The team has just two conference wins to its name — a 63-57 victory against Notre Dame and a 91-84 defeat of Syracuse.
Contributing to the Hurricanes’ struggles is the prolonged absence of star guard Nigel Pack. As a result of his time off the court, Miami is shooting at just a 31.9% clip beyond the arc. The team’s offensive success has instead become largely dictated by senior guard Matthew Cleveland’s ability to muscle his way to the rim on the interior and generate high-percentage opportunities. Cleveland is posting 16.3 points per game on 50.7% shooting from the floor.
Beyond the lack of scoring potential, the Hurricanes’ primary shortcoming is their defense. Interim head coach Bill Courtney’s team currently sits at No. 336 in KenPom adjusted defensive efficiency and an inability to regularly generate stops has yielded an average of 0.52 double-digit scoring runs conceded per game. For reference, Duke concedes less than half that figure with an average of 0.22. A Blue Devil offense that can leverage its versatility to force one of these “kill-shot” scoring runs might lead to a game that is over far before the clock hits zero.
The Hurricanes as they currently stand lack the upside to compete with a contender-level team like Duke. However, shakeups on the defensive end with the absence of Maliq Brown could provide a window of opportunity. The pairing of Cleveland and Lynn Kidd — who scored 20 of Miami’s 54 points the last time he faced the Blue Devils — could leverage their physicality to break through a suffocating Duke defense. After Clemson exposed the vulnerability of the Blue Devils’ frontcourt to physical big men, a Miami team desperate for an upset may be able to lean into this weakness in a push to pull off the improbable.
X-Factor
Duke: Patrick Ngongba II
With continued injury struggles throughout conference play for Maliq Brown, it seems that the greatest weakness for Duke currently lies at the five. Freshman Khaman Maluach — though a key anchor in the team’s play thanks to his length — is still a developing player prone to missteps and foul trouble. Without a veteran like Brown to back him, the Blue Devils will need to lean into Ngongba’s development to add build down low.
The St. Paul VI product saw very limited time on the floor throughout the season’s early stages. Only after Brown’s first injury early in the new year did he find the chance to learn from experience — the growth is now slow but steady. Ngongba had his best performance against Virginia, where he went 4-of-5 from the field and provided a much-needed spark off the bench when the Blue Devils struggled at the rim.
The 6-foot-11 center brings a large frame and blossoming post-scoring ability that adds an extra dimension to the Blue Devils on the offensive end. In the 14 minutes this season when Ngonba took Maluach’s place with the other four starters, the group netted a stunning 72.2 effective field goal percentage while holding opponents to 23.5 in the metric, per CBBAnalytics. Replace Sion James with Mason Gillis, and you have another five-man lineup with Ngongba that far outpaced opponents in effective field goal percentage over 14 minutes. Within Ngongba lies a wealth of talent that Duke would surely benefit from leveraging in Brown’s absence.
Miami: Matthew Cleveland
As the centerpiece of Miami’s offense, much of the team’s success has been contingent on an explosive performance from Cleveland. He posted an efficient 21 points against Notre Dame en route to the team’s first ACC win and then took a step up to dominate Syracuse to earn the second. Against the Orange, the 6-foot-7 guard scored a game-high 32 points on just 13 shots. The performance against Syracuse also featured a 10-of-13 showing at the charity stripe. The Atlanta native is no stranger to getting to the rim and drawing contact to find easy opportunities to score.
In his last meeting with Duke, Cleveland found himself stifled by a lengthy defense and contributed just 2 points, tying his season low. The former Seminole will get another crack at a Blue Devils defense lacking Maliq Brown and will force their frontcourt to fill that defensive void.
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