Jon Scheyer took over as head coach where he’d left off as Mike Krzyzewski’s ace recruiter, landing the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class for 2022.
He’s finding, in Year 1 in the big chair, that it’s one thing to get top recruits to commit, and another thing entirely to get them to gel as a team.
Duke (17-7, 8-5 ACC) has struggled in particular on the road, coming in with just a 2-5 mark in away games in the ACC, the wins coming at league bottom feeders Boston College (65-64, Jan. 7) and Georgia Tech (86-43, Jan. 28).
As things stand now, Duke would still be NCAA Tournament-bound, with an NET at 29, a KenPom rating at 33, suggesting a seven or eight seed.
But that’s nowhere near where the expectations had been coming in. Duke was picked seventh nationally in the preseason AP Top 25, and was tabbed by the ACC media to finish second in the league this season, behind last year’s national runner-up, North Carolina.
Scheyer seems to still be trying to get a feel for his team, going of late with a nine-man rotation that has four freshmen in the starting lineup around junior point guard Jeremy Roach.
The key to the offense has been seven-foot stretch four Kyle Filipowski, one of the three five-star recruits lured to Durham by Scheyer in this year’s recruiting class.
Of note is that Filipowski and Roach are the only two Blue Devils averaging in double digits in the scoring column, and only roach averages more than 30 minutes a game of floor time.
The roster has nine guys averaging at least 16 minutes a game.
Duke’s rotation
- 7’0” freshman Kyle Filipowski: 15.7 ppg, 9.4 rebounds/g, 43.1% FG, 28.9% 3FG, 77.0% FT (5.3 FTA/g)
- 6’2” junior Jeremy Roach: 12.6 ppg, 2.9 assists/g, 39.1% FG, 34.6% 3FG
- 6’8” freshman Mark Mitchell: 9.0 ppg, 4.3 rebounds/g, 47.5% FG, 39.4% 3FG
- 6’5” freshman Tyrese Proctor: 9.0 ppg, 2.9 assists/g, 36.5% FG, 28.1% 3FG
- 6’7” freshman Dariq Whitehead: 8.4 ppg, 38.3% FG, 37.3% 3FG
- 6’10” senior Ryan Young: 7.8 ppg, 6.3 rebounds/g, 72.4% FG
- 6’6” senior Jacob Grandison: 4.9 ppg, 40.8% FG, 33.8% 3FG
- 7’1” freshman Dereck Lively: 4.4 ppg, 4.5 rebounds/g, 58.0% FG
- 6’2” sophomore Jaylen Blakes: 4.2 ppg, 37.3% FG, 36.8% 3FG
How Duke scores
Spot-ups account for 26.5 percent of Duke’s points, but Duke is anything but a good three-point shooting team, connecting on just 32.6 percent of its threes, ranking 260th nationally.
Transition is a big point-getter (16.4 percent of the points), but transition buckets will be in short order against Virginia.
Duke has averaged 12.3 transition points per game over its last four games; Virginia has allowed 3.8 transition points to opponents over its last four, including just two in the 63-50 win over #22 NC State on Tuesday.
Points in the paint – cuts, post-ups, offensive rebounds and pick-and-rolls – offer varying degrees of success for the Blue Devils. Watch out most there for cuts in the lane, where Duke’s guys have an effective field goal percentage of 68.0 percent, and the roll guy on the back end of pick-and-rolls, where the EFG is 50.0 percent.
They’re not all that good on post-ups (44.4 percent EFG) and the ball-handler side of pick-and-rolls (37.9 percent EFG).
Projections
- Bart Torvik: Virginia 65-59, 76% win probability
- EvanMiya: Virginia 68-62, 71.7% win probability
- ESPN BPI: Virginia +6.1, 74.2% win probability
- KenPom: Virginia 66-60, 71% win probability
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Chris Graham
