College basketball’s biggest rivalry will have its 2025 trilogy Friday evening in Charlotte.
While it’s a similar situation for the Tar Heels — an opportunity for a Quad 1 win to secure an NCAA Tournament bid — the Blue Devils will likely look different in the Spectrum Center with Maliq Brown dislocating his shoulder again and Cooper Flagg nursing a left ankle injury.
Duke’s chances to advance become more difficult without its leader in every major category and its stalwart defender whose praises are sung by every member of his team. But the Blue Devils’ 78-70 win against Georgia Tech Thursday showcased a path to success for the rest of the weekend.
The quarterfinal contest was a tale of two halves. Duke missed its first 13 3-point attempts and finished the period with a 36.7% field-goal percentage.
But even after everything that went wrong in the first 16 minutes, a sliver of Blue Devil momentum sliced the Yellow Jacket lead from as big as 14 to a manageable five as the teams entered the locker room. Two of Duke’s freshmen reserves — Isaiah Evans and Patrick Ngongba II — led the way in that charge.
A Flagg swat tuned into a transition wing 3-pointer — the quintessential “Duke shot” for Evans that finally broke the lid off the rim. Both had multiple buckets in the waning moments of the half. Head coach Jon Scheyer called that period an “inflection point” in the game.
“I thought that was everything for us,” Scheyer said of the run. “My message in the under-four timeout was just cut the lead, win these four minutes and we’ll figure it out at halftime. The fact that it was a two-possession game, it could have easily been 15, could have easily been 20.”
Flagg went down in that period, but the team’s response illustrated its bigger mission.
“I think it just shows that we're a real team. It's not really about one person or two people. It's about Duke,” Evans said. “Duke is going to handle business all the time. That's what we came here to do.”
The chemistry and connectivity of this team has ascended its offense from good to a national juggernaut. North Carolina will look to pressure the ball and turn the Blue Devils over, and Flagg’s magnetic pull for double teams will be missed. But to combat that, Duke’s off-ball movement and patience will be that much more important.
It’s the down screens for Knueppel, the flare screens for Evans or the pullup triples from Tyrese Proctor. Duke needs to execute on that end and utilize fakes and misdirections to throw off the Tar Heel defenders.
On one hand, basketball can be as simple as making and missing shots. However, even after a woeful shooting half, the Blue Devils’ response centered on the other end of the floor.
“It was all defense,” Proctor said on what changed. “[Georgia Tech] scored way too many points in our paint. They were hitting too many threes. So I think once we adjusted to that and started playing our defense, we went into the zone and kind of messed them up a little bit.”
The first two defensive possessions of the second half — particularly from Maluach — exemplified how the Blue Devils can control the paint effectively. To start, Maluach helped from the weak side for a two-handed swat of an out-of-control shot attempt.
On the following play, the Rumbek, South Sudan, native did a bit of everything. He began in drop coverage on the pick-and-roll as Jaeden Mustaf drove to the rim. Then, he forced a deflection on the pass and finished it off with a block on Baye Ndongo.
Maluach’s skill to guard positions one through five is well documented, but in the first half, Ndongo was able to blow by him for a few early buckets. However, Duke went to some four-guard lineups with Maluach in the middle for the majority of the second half.
Against a new-look North Carolina starting five, Maluach will be paramount. With a thin frontcourt, can he stay out of foul trouble and defend without giving away open driving lanes? Maluach will always provide length, but the physicality piece that he needs to replicate.
On the offensive end, the 7-foot-2 center showed flashes against the Yellow Jackets that can carry over to the future of the tournament. Just like in Duke’s 82-56 win against Georgia Tech Dec. 21, he was unstoppable on the pick-and-roll with fellow freshman Kon Knueppel.
“[Kon] and Khaman have developed a great two-man game,” Scheyer said. “And I think you saw that tonight, it puts teams in a position, what do you do?”
“I feel like throughout the whole season, our connection has been growing,” Maluach said of Knueppel. “We've been working on it, whether it's in practice or after practice or in shootaround. I feel like we still have more room, and we'll keep getting better.”
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But his best offensive play of the night was not a high-flying slam, but rather his patience on a feed from Knueppel with 9:25 remaining in the first half. When the dunk wasn’t available, he pump-faked, turned over his left shoulder and showed touch on a hook shot.
Maluach is not a back-to-the-basket big, but the development from a lob threat to a reliable scorer on the interior can give the Blue Devils more second-chance opportunities moving forward. It won’t fix everything that Flagg and Brown bring, but that, combined with a spread-the-wealth mentality on offense, can minimize the damage.
Duke controls its own destiny and still has the talent and chemistry to win this league. Now, how will it handle the adversity that comes in March?
The Blue Devils and Tar Heels will tip off at 7 p.m. with a trip to the ACC championship on the line.
Ranjan Jindal is a Trinity junior and sports editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.