Duke Catches Fire to Down Wisconsin as Both CBB Heavyweights Live Up to the Hype

Early-season games that get billed as "potential Final Four previews" often disappoint.

But Duke and Wisconsin delivered in a big way Wednesday night, both looking like championship-caliber teams.

Traevon Jackson led all scorers with a career-high 25 points, but it was Tyus Jones who scored 22 and stole the show as No. 4 Duke went into a hostile environment, shot a ludicrous 65.2 percent from the field and escaped with a 80-70 win over No. 2 Wisconsin.

Coming into the game, Wisconsin was limiting opponents to 50.6 points per game and 37.1 percent shooting from the field.

Clearly, the Badgers haven't played any teams as good as Duke.

That's one of the primary reasons the entire world was pumped about watching this game.

The Big Ten had already won the ACC/Big Ten Challenge before this game even tipped off, but that didn't remotely lessen the national excitement that had been steadily building since before the season even began.

So many people wanted to see the game, in fact, that Wisconsin reportedly wasn't able to grant all requests for credentials, as pointed out by Reid Forgrave of Fox Sports:

Who says regular-season basketball doesn't matter?

The Blue Devils ended up pulling away to win by 10, but this was a back-and-forth fight between two heavyweights. Here's the scary news for the rest of the country: Neither of these teams played up to its full potential.

As far as starting fives go, there aren't many better than Duke and Wisconsin, and they each had a couple of starters put up big numbers. However, both the Blue Devils and Badgers had a pair of crucial players play at a level less than we're accustomed to seeing from them—meaning they'll only be that much better when firing on all cylinders.

For Duke, Jahlil Okafor dealt with foul trouble for most of the night. He finished with a respectable 13 points and six rebounds, but he only momentarily looked like his normal self. Speaking of looks, college hoops reporter Seth Davis compared Okafor to "Jared Sullinger as a freshman":

With 10 minutes remaining in the game, Okafor had six points and four rebounds. His most important number at that time, though, was two fouls. He picked up his second foul with 8:34 remaining in the first half and spent the next 18 minutes of game time either on the bench or very tentatively on the court.

For a few minutes, however, he stopped playing in fear of fouls. He scored seven points—including a Tim Duncan-esque kiss off the glass on a jumper from about 15 feet out—and grabbed two rebounds in a span of less than four minutes, but he disappeared once again after picking up his third and fourth fouls.

Justise Winslow entered the game as Duke's second-most highly acclaimed freshman, but he was even less a factor than Okafor. Winslow scored at least 14 points in each of Duke's first five games of the season, but he was held to just five points, while committing a season-high four turnovers.

Winslow did, however, have a two-handed slam near the end of the game worthy of a Matt Norlander Vine:

Duke's shortcomings were modest, though. Okafor might not have played like the 2015 No. 1 draft pick Wednesday night, but he played very well on both ends of the court. And for as much as Winslow struggled, Rasheed Sulaimon picked up the slack with a season-high 14 points off the bench.

And while the other freshmen had less-than-stellar nights, Tyus Jones was incredible. CBS Sports' Matt Norlander was impressed by his performance:

Jones didn't do much before draining three-pointers on back-to-back possessions near the end of the first half, but he finished the night with 22 points, four assists, six rebounds and one turnover.

Jones was billed as a pass-first point guard coming out of high school, and that has been the case on some nights. In four of Duke's eight games, he has scored six or fewer points.

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In the other four, however, he has scored at least 15, including the new career high that he set against Wisconsin. Jones did a great job of taking what was given to him, driving into open lanes and finishing near the hoop. He made three layups in the second half and attempted eight free throws after Duke entered the half without a single trip to the charity stripe.

Jones actually damaged his assist-to-turnover ratio, which now sits at a still-ridiculous 5.8.

Feel free to keep talking about Okafor and Winslow, but Jones has been the Duke freshman most playing like a grown man, pacing the Blue Devils to eight consecutive wins by double digits.

There might not be a team out there that can beat Kentucky this year, but from what we saw at the Kohl Center on Wednesday night, Duke is the one most likely to give the Wildcats a run for their money.

In his recap of the game for NBC Sports, Raphielle Johnson wrote, "Overall the Blue Devils put forth a performance worthy of a national title contender."

Wisconsin, on the other hand, might as well have been playing with just two players: Traevon Jackson and Frank Kaminsky.

Even Kaminsky's 17 points seem a little hollow, considering he drained two three-pointers before the first media timeout of the game.

Sam Dekker came into this game with an injured ankle, as noted by Forgrave, and it showed:

Early in the second half, Dekker had a relatively free lane to the hoop that any other 6'9" forward would have slammed home with the force of a Mack truck at top speed, but he had an awkward liftoff that turned into an even more awkward layup attempt that missed. He didn't even attempt another shot over the final 16 minutes of the game.

Nigel Hayes was equally disappointing, but his issues stemmed from foul trouble rather than injury.

Hayes picked up his second foul of the game just 25 seconds after Okafor did the same, but his third foul came less than three minutes into the second half.

Wisconsin's biggest offensive surprise of the first three weeks of the season wasn't ever able to get into a rhythm in this one. He finished the night with four points, while Dekker just barely bested him with five.

They came into the game averaging a combined 26.3 points.

But we know those two players are better than what they showed Wednesday night.

Andy Manis/Associated Press

What we perhaps didn't know is that Jackson can take over a game on offense when necessary.

Jackson entered the game with the same number of assists as made field goals—22 of each. Through seven games, he had made just three three-pointers.

He proceeded to sink three triples against Duke, finishing the night with 25 points on a very efficient 12 field-goal attempts.

Wisconsin's big men have been absolutely incredible thus far this season. Throw Duje Dukan's 8.4 points per game into the mix and the Badgers have had one of the best frontcourts in the country.

But this was the first time we've really seen any signs of life out of their backcourt. Josh Gasser is the starting shooting guard, but he's averaging just a shade over 8.0 points per 40 minutes. Bronson Koenig had a nice game against Georgetown with 14 points, but he has really been invisible aside from that.

Gun to my head, I would have picked Zak Showalter as Wisconsin's best scoring guard before Wednesday night, and he didn't even appear in this game.

Wisconsin may have lost the game, but it was very promising for future returns to see Jackson score that effectively against a Duke team that played excellent defense. It can't always be Kaminsky, Dekker and Hayes, and now the Badgers have a legitimate fourth option that should help pace them to a second consecutive Final Four.

Long story short, what we saw in this game wasn't the best that we'll see of either team this season. Both Duke and Wisconsin are incredible teams, and it's a shame that either one of them had to suffer a loss this early in the season.

Anything can happen in March, but it feels like it'll only be a matter of time before these two teams wage a second war in the latter stages of the 2015 NCAA tournament.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.