Depth a Growing Concern for Duke as Blue Devils Survive Scrappy UConn

Nothing came easily for either team on Thursday night in New Jersey as No. 2 Duke escaped with a 66-56 win over a Connecticut team that now has four losses on the season.

At the half, this was anyone's game. Moreover, several times late in the second half, Connecticut fought back to within six points, but Duke was able to keep the Huskies at arm's length.

Considering the external factors, though, it's not much of a surprise that this game was this close.

From December 3-29, this was one of just two games on the Blue Devils' schedule. As Jay Bilas and Dan Shulman noted on ESPN's broadcast of the game, several players were going straight from this game to an 11-day holiday break with family. The Blue Devils looked very lethargic until early in the second half, apparently struggling to care about this last hurdle before a vacation.

Per Tom Canavan of The Associated Press, after the game head coach Mike Krzyzewski commented on his team's lackadaisical effort, "We were out to lunch. I mean, we were in La-La land. I had to take the timeout (early in the second half) to get us back into it."

Connecticut, on the other hand, desperately needed this win and played as such. Duke was sloppy, but Connecticut was scrappy, forcing 21 Duke turnovers. Had Amida Brimah been able to get any playing time without committing fouls, this likely would have been a different outcome.

But the end result was almost exactly as the odds makers expected. According to OddsShark.com, Duke was favored by 10.5 points.

However, it's a fair assumption that nobody was expecting Duke's bench to go scoreless in this one, and that could become a serious issue in due time.

Duke looks like a pretty deep team if you focus solely on the season averages, but a lot of that scoring came in "garbage time" against the likes of Presbyterian, Fairfield and Furman. Take a look at the games Duke has played against quality opponents, though, and it's a different story.

Opponent	Team Points	Starters	Bench
Michigan State (11/18)	81	74	7
Stanford (11/22)	70	54	16
Wisconsin (12/3)	80	59	21
Connecticut (12/18)	66	66	0

Against Wisconsin, Jahlil Okafor dealt with foul trouble and Justise Winslow couldn't get anything going, but fortunately for Duke, Rasheed Sulaimon stepped up to the plate in a big way that night. Even with that game included, though, Duke's bench is scoring just 14.8 percent of its points in key games—and that scoring has been contained almost entirely to Sulaimon and Matt Jones (40 of the 44 points).

Duke might have the most talented starting five in the country, but what happens when someone gets into foul trouble—especially if it's Okafor or Amile Jefferson?

Grant Halverson/Getty Images

There are quite a few people out there who think that Duke is one of the teams best suited to beat Kentucky this year.

In an exchange between ESPN's Jay Bilas and Jeff Goodman (Insider subscription required) from a little over a week ago, Goodman said, "I think it's fairly clear—even though we're less than a month into the season—that Kentucky and Duke are a notch above everyone else. The easy answer to which team can beat Kentucky is obviously Duke, and vice versa."

Bilas responded, "Duke would give the Wildcats a hard time, because the Blue Devils can shoot it and spread the floor, and they have a very good passing team. Duke is vastly improved on the defensive end, as well."

But can you even imagine what would happen if one of Duke's bigs got into foul trouble and Marshall Plumlee had to play 15-20 minutes against Willie Cauley-Stein, Karl-Anthony Towns and Dakari Johnson?

(And that's foolishly assuming Plumlee could play that many minutes against a quality opponent without fouling himself out.)

It's either that or go with a four-guard lineup against the biggest, baddest lineup in the country, because the Blue Devils only have those three players on the roster taller than 6'6" now that they lost Semi Ojeleye to the transfer market.

Heck, forget about Kentucky. How does Duke plan on dealing with Louisville or North Carolina if the referees are quick with the whistles on those nights? Even if Okafor and Jefferson are permitted by the refs to play 35 minutes per game, what could those guys possibly have left in the tank for the NCAA tournament after logging that much playing time against a grueling ACC slate?

Maybe the better question, though, is where in the world is Grayson Allen?

Allen played quite well in the first two games of the season, scoring 27 points in just 21 minutes. But in the four games mentioned above, Allen has played a total of three minutes.

In a week in which Duke already lost Ojeleye because of a lack of playing time, how is Mike Krzyzewski not giving any minutes to the guy who won the McDonald's All-American slam dunk contest?

Grant Halverson/Getty Images

Andre Dawkins and Tyler Thornton played a combined 35.0 minutes per game last season alongside Jabari Parker and Rodney Hood, but Allen can't even get on the court on most nights?

Really?

To be fair, Duke has never been one to rely heavily on its bench. For the past several years, Krzyzewski's formula has more or less been to have four starters who can score, a starting power forward who defends well and grabs rebounds and a change-of-pace sixth man off the bench—usually a stretch 4.

Two years ago, five Blue Devils averaged at least 11.6 points per game, but the sixth-best scorer topped out at 4.0. Last year, only seven Duke players averaged better than 9.5 minutes per game, and only five of them were in there to score.

But this year—with charges being called at an outrageous rate—depth is more crucial than ever. You never know when you'll need to lean heavily on a bench player because of a few egregious flops.

The thing is, though, Duke should be the primary team relying on its depth. 

We're talking about a team with nine McDonald's All-Americans—the most in the country, now that Alex Poythress is out for the year at Kentucky. Guys like Plumlee, Allen and Matt Jones would be playing 34 minutes per night at most schools.

There's no shortage of talent on the bench. It's basically a gold mine that isn't being excavated.

Really, if anyone should be employing the platoon system these days, it's Duke.

Position	Cameron Platoon	Crazy Platoon
PG	Tyus Jones	Quinn Cook
SG	Rasheed Sulaimon	Grayson Allen
SF	Matt Jones	Nick Pagliuca
PF	Amile Jefferson	Justise Winslow
C	Jahlil Okafor	Marshall Plumlee

Obviously, Nick Pagliuca would be the weak link in there, but Coach K could cut him out of the mix with a modified platoon approach where he aims to get 30 minutes each for Okafor and Tyus Jones and then 20 minutes for the other seven guys.

It's an extreme suggestion for sure, but Duke needs to do something to get those bench guys more involved.

And if you'll recall, Coach K started employing a platoon approach in mid-January last season. After losses to Notre Dame and Clemson in a span of three games, Duke came out against Virginia and was subbing five-for-five early and often. In the following game against NC State, 10 guys played at least 12 minutes.

Plumlee was averaging 4.4 minutes per game through the first 16 games, but his playing time more than doubled to 9.7 MPG over the final 19 games—and that's hardly because he was suddenly an unstoppable force.

Mixing things up didn't do much to help Duke out in the NCAA tournament, but the Blue Devils clearly improved from where they were in the first two months of the season.

It's hard to argue that the No. 2 team in the country needs to do anything to improve, but a little more point distribution wouldn't be a bad thing.

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