Even In A Loss, Duke Shows It Is Built For March

But only if the young Blue Devils, and their young coach, learn from their mistakes

During the “one-and-done” era of his legendary career, Mike Krzyzewski would often lament how his young teams got “knocked back” in early season losses to more experienced and physical teams. That’s a fair assessment for what happened to this Duke team, now under Jon Scheyer’s stewardship, against Kansas in Las Vegas, with the experienced Jayhawks claiming a quick double digit lead.

It would’ve been all too easy for this Blue Devil squad to let the contest get out of hand after that early haymaker from the No. 1 team in the land. In an eerily similar contest in Scheyer’s first season, against a Purdue team that was similarly experienced and led by a behemoth in the post, the Blue Devils were never truly competitive and lost by nearly 20 points. This season, Duke stayed in contact until their offense came together, and once again put themselves in a position to win the game late.

Despite the outcome being another tight loss, that difference is something that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Of course Duke does not compete for moral victories, and there are definite concerns with how this young squad executed in the final minute—which are all the more serious given the similarities with the end of the Blue Devils’ other loss to Kentucky. But National Championships are won in March and April, not in November, giving Duke more than three months to address those (and other) issues.

Lest we forget, freshmen tend to grow the most over the course of a college basketball season, and Duke has three of them in the starting lineup. Cooper Flagg already showed growth in this contest compared to against Kentucky: while his turnover on the final possession was all-too-familiar, Flagg’s shot selection over the course of the game was much improved, and he adjusted successfully after two early turnovers. Kon Kneuppel could be on the same trajectory as Jared McCain last year: lost in McCain’s late season explosion was that he too struggled early against top-tier opponents, including scoring no points against Michigan State, 5 in a loss at Arkansas, and 6 (including 0-for-3 from beyond the arc) in a surprising loss at Georgia Tech. Kneuppel is arguably ahead of McCain’s curve given his ability to impact the game when his shot isn’t falling, as evidenced by his 11 points against the Jayhawks despite an 0-for-8 mark from deep. Khaman Maluach, meanwhile, appears on the same trajectory of recent young Duke big men like Mark Williams and Dereck Lively, with every reason to believe the version of Maluach we see in March will be very different from the one who only managed four points and one rebound against Kansas.

With this early season version of those key three freshmen, Duke wasn’t quite good enough to beat Kansas or Kentucky—but it also was in position to do so had a single bounce or whistle gone the Blue Devils’ way. Come March, if those three freshmen evolve, similar contests might not come down to a single play.

It also bears remembering that this early-season gauntlet is historically challenging. Duke has lost single-possession games to two teams that should both be in strong contention for No. 1 overall seeds at the conclusion of the non-conference slate. Such losses are a far cry from last season’s early season non-conference defeats, one at home and the other to a subpar Arkansas team in a contest that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score suggested. The same could be said of Duke’s non-conference losses two years ago, which included the blowout at the hands of Purdue. That also ignores the immense quality of Duke’s victory at Arizona compared to the lower quality non-conference wins in those two seasons, with another top-tier opportunity to come at home against Auburn next week.

Jon Scheyer chose this early season gauntlet because he was less worried about the Blue Devils’ early season record and more about preparing them for the NCAA Tournament. Come tournament time, Duke will undoubtedly have to grind out a game where their shots aren’t falling early or the whistles seem to be against them. In November, the Blue Devils have shown they can take such games, against the highest quality teams, down to the wire. With three months to learn and grow, there’s every reason to believe they’ll be over that hump when such situations arise in March.