Duke Munches On Another Cupcake

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

The Duke Blue Devils beat up the St. Louis Billikens, 84-47. Duke improves to 10-0 on the season with their 20th straight win (dating back to last year). This was Duke’s second of four cupcakes to wrap up the year. Last Wednesday they beat 158th-ranked Bradley. The Billlikens are 101st. Next up is No. 255 Elon and No. 320 UNC-Greensboro (all rankings according to Ken Pom).

THE GAME WAS OVER WHEN…

…Duke put St. Louis out of their misery with an 18-4 run starting at the 15-minute mark in the second half. It’s becoming the patient Duke run in the second half.

The Blue Devils led by 20 or so for most of the game, but even bad teams can make up 20-point deficits. In fact, St. Louis started the second half on a 11-5 run, bringing Duke’s lead down to 17. Then Duke went on their run and the lead was up to 30. Good night.

WHO DESERVES MAD PROPS

…Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler. The Duke seniors picked it up today, scoring 43 of Duke’s 84 points. They hit a solid 16-28 from the floor.

For Singler, it was nice to finally see him take advantage of his size advantage against smaller defenders. He spent most of his time working the ball inside. He only took four threes for the game.

Of course with Kyrie Irving out (maybe for the season), Nolan Smith is the most important player on this team. Against Bradley he struggled to find his shot, while running the point (10 assists). Today he came out more aggressive, looking for his shot. He did most of his damage driving strongly to the basket. In fact, he only took one three-point shot. For the game, he also grabbed five rebounds and dished out six assists.

As good as this team is as a whole, it’s hard to imagine a non-Irving Duke team can be successful if Nolan has a bad night. The offense runs through him now.

DON’T FORGET ABOUT

Seth Curry had a nice game. He scored 12, taking half of Duke’s threes today. He also ran some point, dishing out six assists, turning it over only twice. Obviously Curry is still trying to figure out his role on this team.

If you’re looking for one positive from Irving’s injury (assuming he does come back), it’s going to allow Curry more minutes. The more experience he gets, the more valuable he becomes later in the season.

If he needs to work on one thing, it’s what he does with the ball inside the paint. Today he tried some dribble drive, and he clearly showed he can get by his defender, but a handful of times, he drove and kind of got stuck.

For example…in the first half he curled around a perfect screen. The ball was delivered to him perfectly at about eight feet. The paint was wide open for a open jumper or even a lay up at the rim. Instead Curry stopped on a dime, got stuck and eventually traveled.

Overall not too worry. Once he starts to hit that outside shot with some consistency, the inside stuff will soon follow.

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