Quotes & Notes - February 1

at Georgia Tech; vs. Wake Forest

Feb 01, 2023

After every game I do three things: watch the press conference, read the quotes, and study the box score. Quotes & Notes is my wrap-up of the most recent games of the Duke season, including postgame quotes, stats, and other thoughts.

Quotes

“I think the biggest thing for us, we’ve done that in spurts throughout the year, we haven’t done it for 40 minutes of a game. And with every single one of our guys, it doesn’t come from a selfish place or trying to do it just on your own, it’s knowing what to do and for us, we spend a lot of time in key stretches – I thought the stretch where they cut it to seven in the first half, we’ve talked about segments of games, for us we felt it was a really important segment. Because it can either be tied at half, it can be a three, four-point game, or we can extend it. Again, do you think it’s going to be 18, that’s not necessarily what you’re talking about but to push it to 18 is a big deal. So for us, it’s watching film, we had some really competitive practices where we’re just learning how to get to the next action. If that’s not there, let’s say we call a play, what to do next? Where, for a lot of our guys, they haven’t had to do that. Proud of them learning, proud of them blocking out any noise, just focusing on getting better every day. I thought it really translated today with our offense.”

- Coach Scheyer on Duke’s offense at Georgia Tech

“Well, big time game. Thought it was a big win for us. I give Wake Forest a lot of credit. We’re up there, whatever it was 14 or 12, and they fought back and made some big time plays. I felt we were in pretty good control down the stretch. I thought Jeremy [Roach]’s steal and Tyrese [Proctor]’s tip-in was a big time play. Flip [Kyle Filipowski] obviously hitting the three and then the heads up play by Jake [Grandison] and Flip to connect and hit him long to finish. You wish you could make a couple of those free throws, but it happens and we did enough definitely to put ourselves in a position to win, so proud of our team and I think we are getting better. The competition will continue to go up but like what we’re doing and we’ll continue to build and go from here.”

- Coach Scheyer on the win vs. Wake Forest

Stats

After Miami and Virginia Tech were extremely efficient from 3-point range (1.43 & 1.58 respectively), Duke held both Georgia Tech and Wake Forest to under 1.00 points-per-shot from deep. Both teams missed some open opportunities as well, but I thought Duke did a nice job of guarding the 3-point line and forcing contested attempts. At Georgia Tech, the Blue Devils had five guys score in double-figures for the first time in ACC play. Duke won the glass 39-32 against Wake after being out-rebounded by 8 in Winston-Salem.

Notes

Duke obviously played well in Atlanta and I thought did a nice job adjusting to Georgia Tech’s changing defense. The Blue Devils were able to avoid a drought on offense and really shared the ball well, logging a season-high 24 assists on 34 made field goals. While their assist percentage was the same, the Yellow Jackets only had 12 assists on 17 made field goals. I was especially pleased with the way the guys played to start the second half, extending the lead they worked hard to build after Georgia Tech cut it down to 7 with just 4:21 remaining before halftime. It is human nature to relax a little when you’re up 18 at the half, but Duke didn’t allow that to happen.

Against Wake Forest, Duke was able to build their second half lead to 14 points with 5:28 remaining after the Demon Deacons had cut the deficit to just 6 midway through the half. I really commend the Blue Devils because, at that point, it easily could have remained a one or two-possession margin for the rest of the game. Give Wake Forest credit as well for continuing to attack offensively in those last 5 minutes, but I can’t say I was surprised they kept coming - pushing the ball in transition, getting to the line, and shooting with confidence. Wake made just four 3-pointers in the second half, but three of them came within the last 4:30. The Deacs also made 9 out of 10 second half free throws, compared to only 3 out 5 for the Blue Devils. Down the stretch, Duke had some open looks that just didn’t go down and missed two front-ends, but I felt the execution on offense was good overall. Coach Scheyer mentioned after the game the importance of “...having the discipline to understand the time and score, so we have to continue to learn and I told the team it’s better to learn while you’re winning as opposed to the other way but we have a lot of room to grow and tonight the fouls and the free throws was a big thing.” This was yet another great learning experience for the Blue Devils.

As I said earlier this season, I love all Duke sports and want to include a non-men’s basketball update here every so often. Coach Lawson and the Duke women continue their stellar season, currently ranked 16th in the country and tied with Notre Dame atop the ACC standings. In early January, Michelle Cooper won the Hermann Trophy, given to the top soccer player in the nation and putting her in the company of some great names including Mia Hamm and my guy Jay Heaps. Duke Football released their 2023 schedule yesterday - there are some great games coming to Wallace Wade in the fall.