CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Last time Jon Scheyer walked out of John Paul Jones Arena, he was seething. As his Blue Devils took care of business Monday night, their head coach had a much different reaction.
No. 3 Duke downed Virginia 80-62. Though the Cavaliers kept pace with the Blue Devils through the first few minutes, Scheyer’s squad pulled away on three consecutive 3-pointers from Isaiah Evans and a dominant rebounding effort from Cooper Flagg. The Newport, Maine, native recorded a double-double in the first half alone just hours after receiving his record-tying 10th ACC Rookie of the Week honor.
"I think we're just a team that we can exploit a lot of different things that a defense gives," Evans said after the game.
Maliq Brown, who has been a disruptive force for Duke on defense, left the game in the final two minutes of the first half with an apparent left shoulder injury. The team quickly announced he would not return for the second half. In his postgame press conference, Scheyer confirmed that Brown dislocated his left shoulder and will get further imaging.
The Blue Devils made their money on the glass. Blake Buchanan, the Cavaliers’ leading rebounder and tallest player, could not keep up with Duke’s length. In the first half, he scored just two points (the opening two of the contest) and snagged two boards. The Blue Devils, namely Flagg, took advantage. He had 11 rebounds for a first-half double-double, and set a new career high less than two minutes into the second. Flagg ended the night with 17 points, 14 boards, two blocks and two steals. In total, the visitors outrebounded their opponents 41-21, including 10 rebounds on their own offensive end.
"We just have a strong desire to get the ball," Kon Knueppel said.
Duke shot no shortage of threes in the first half and made more than half of them. And if the Blue Devils missed, they just collected their own rebounds and shot again. In the first half, Evans made three off the bench — one on a fast break seconds after entering the game and two after offensive boards. He knocked down two in the second half, ending one point short of his career high set against Auburn back in December. Evans’ fifth triple extended Duke’s lead to 68-43.
"Everybody knows the shot making," Scheyer said, "but what I'm seeing is the blocked shots, the defending, the rebounding."
The freshman is proving his worth on the defensive end, too. Perhaps learning from Brown, Evans’ active hands deflected a layup by Andrew Rohde late in the first frame. Flagg grabbed the rock, and Sion James put it through the hoop two seconds later.
"A lot of time, when I'm maybe not in the game, or I might be taken out because I make a slip up defensively. [Brown's] telling me how to do things, what to look out for," Evans said of Brown's mentorship.
The crowd had been quieted halfway through the first half when Duke pulled away, but a slump a few minutes into the second brought them back into the game. Jacob Cofie and Anthony Robinson recorded blocks on Knueppel and Flagg, respectively, and a layup by Dai Dai Ames sent the arena into a frenzy as the home squad trailed 51-33. The Blue Devils ended their scoreless two minutes with a clean dunk by Patrick Ngongba II, and the crowd quieted quickly. With Brown out, Ngongba saw 11 minutes in the second half and put up eight points.
Both teams began the night with empty offensive possessions. Maluach disrupted a layup attempt by Cofie, then lost the ball under his own basket. Buchanan got on the boards first, but Flagg responded immediately. Thus began five minutes of back-and-forth play heading into the first media timeout, during which Virginia only missed once and Duke twice, though Flagg grabbed his own rebound for second-chance points. At 14:41, the Blue Devils led just 13-12.
They turned that into 21-14 in just more than four minutes, outrebounding the Cavaliers 6-1 in that span. Flagg had a nasty block on Taine Murray as the 6-foot-5 senior tried to drive on him, and reeled in the rebound to set up a Proctor triple.
"It's good to see them go down early," Knueppel said. "Especially it makes it hard on the defense, just to know that they have to react to us."
Throughout the second half, Virginia’s offensive weapons tried to claw their way back. Isaac McKneely, the Cavaliers’ leading scorer on the season, knocked down two of his team’s three triples. He ended the night with 14 points, greater than his season average but not great enough to keep Virginia in the game.
Duke returns to a neutral floor Saturday night, taking on Illinois in the SentinelOne Classic at Madison Square Garden.
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Rachael Kaplan is a Trinity senior and a senior editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.