Quotes & Notes - January 5

vs. Florida State, at NC State

Jan 05, 2023

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

Quotes

“We’ve had a good start to the year, but it’s a fresh start and when you have that much time off in between games it’s hard to keep the same rhythm, it just is. So for us, we went and got back to work, four really good days of preparation. Our guys embraced it, they worked really hard, we got back into the shape that we needed to. For us, going against each other has gotten us better. That’s something that not a lot of teams have, where we can put 10 guys out on the floor that can go at it in practice. We need to balance that and to not do it too much to where we get banged up but we did that this week and it really benefited us.”

- Coach Scheyer after the Florida State game on returning from break

“Congratulations to [NC] State, they outplayed us really in every facet. Their guards controlled the game, they outfought us. We knew they would be a really hungry team coming off a couple of tough losses and we’ve known they were a dangerous team. They’ve been right there with some of the best teams in the country and we have a lot of respect for them. But that was not a good enough performance or effort on our part and that’s on me. Unfortunately there have been moments I’ve been through as a player and coach where you have a night like this, and it’s not okay. It’s not okay to have a night like this. For us to learn from it, we’ve got to grow and change. I take responsibility for that as a coach. This is disappointing, but credit to them. We’re 2-2 and there’s still 16 games left in the ACC, there’s a long way to go.”

- Coach Scheyer after the loss at NC State

Stats

The obvious stat for the past two games is points off turnovers - while a lot of things went poorly for Duke in Raleigh last night, a -28 differential in points off turnovers was chief among them. It may sound illogical, but I actually thought going down 18-2 to start the game wasn’t where the first half got away from the Blue Devils. Duke did a nice job of chipping back into the lead and switching to the 2-3 zone improved their half court defense. After an NC State timeout, Duke trailed 14-26 with a little more than 5 minutes left in the half. NC State turned it over as Duke showed a 1-3-1 zone for the first time and the ball found Kyle Filipowski for a good look at a corner 3. It missed everything and Jarkel Joiner took the miss quickly into the front court for a step back 3. As they had done for most of the half, NC State’s defense picked up full court. Terquavion Smith deflected Dariq Whitehead’s pass to Jeremy Roach, kept the ball alive along the sideline, and fired a 3 of his own. Duke was never “storming back” but those 6 points in 15 seconds killed any momentum the Blue Devils had built. Duke was now down 18 and they would never get closer than that in the second half.

Notes

I don’t love Duke playing in Raleigh. The broadcast pointed out last night that Duke has now lost 5 of 7 games there but, unfortunately, that was shortsighted. I looked at the last 15 games Duke has played in PNC (formerly RBC) Arena. During that span, Duke is 6-9 and has only won consecutive games once, a 3 game winning streak in ‘05, ‘07, and ‘08. The 2008 game required a 13 point comeback with 12 minutes remaining for Coach K’s 800th win. The Blue Devils also lost 3 in a row during that 15 game span, in 2013 and 2015 to NC State and to Mercer in the 2014 NCAA Tournament. Both the 2010 and 2015 National Championship teams lost to the Wolfpack in Raleigh. This stretch obviously covers many different teams, players, and 4 different coaches for NC State. You can’t point to a certain system or scouting report that has been the common denominator as to why Duke has struggled in that building. I don’t believe any previous result affects the next game and I don’t believe Duke is likely to play poorly just because of the gym. Most importantly, I credit NC State and Mercer for playing better in each individual game. I also believe sport lends itself to various types of cycles and streaks - this has just been a tough stretch of games in PNC but not because of the building or Duke’s previous record over a certain period. This year’s Duke team was 0-0 against the Wolfpack in Raleigh before last night and that’ll be the case in their next road game against NC State as well.

I love Duke getting into a more normal rhythm with their schedule. The Blue Devils get right back on the road Saturday against Boston College. It will be another tough test because every ACC game is, especially on the road, but I’m glad the team will now be in the flow of the conference after the Blue Devils played just one game in 20 days before Florida State. There will be some difficult turnarounds with the conference in full swing, starting with Saturday, but that is just the reality of life in the ACC.

Duke Football finished their season off strong with a 30-13 Military Bowl victory over a good UCF team - congratulations to all the players and Coach Elko and his staff on a great season. Duke Baseball released their schedule and I always look forward to getting out to the ballpark once or twice. The Women’s Basketball team has been super fun to watch - they are currently 3-0 in the ACC going into tonight’s game at Wake Forest, with their only loss of the season so far to UConn in the Phil Knight Legacy. If you missed this pre-season talk from Coach Lawson, I highly recommend giving it a watch - it’s great motivation for 2023.