Kennard back on track after slow start from downtown

Entering Duke’s contest against Utah State, freshman Luke Kennard—who developed a reputation as a sharpshooter in high school—was shooting a woeful 17 percent from beyond the arc.

But from the moment he hit the floor Sunday, Kennard displayed an aggressive and attacking mentality that has been missing all season. The freshman scored seven straight points midway through the first half—a 3-pointer, a long jumper and an and-one on a right-handed floater in the lane leading into the under-eight media timeout.

As he headed toward the bench, Kennard was congratulated near mid-court by the usual suspects—walk-ons Nick Pagliuca and Brennan Besser. But Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski was also waiting for him well away from the Blue Devil sideline. The 68-year old Krzyzewski met Kennard with a powerful two-handed push of the chest that seemed weeks in the making.

“He said ‘There you go. That’s what we want,’” Kennard said. “I could tell when I looked him in the eyes, he was very excited with how I was playing, how I was attacking, the energy that I brought to the floor.”

For the freshman, no two points he scores all season may be bigger than that floater. Kennard’s struggles from the floor have been a mystery all season, but the bump from Krzyzewski might be just what the Franklin, Ohio, native needed to jumpstart his season. 

“I know how hard he’s working,” Krzyzewski said. “I’m not sure if teachers do this when they finally get a good paper from a kid but I would hope they get excited when they see a student ‘get it.’ He was getting it and that’s exciting for me and I want him to see that excitement from me because I know how hard he’s worked for it.”

Kennard made the free throw out of the timeout to extend his personal run to eight straight, which was just the start of a career performance. The freshman finished with a career-high 22 points in Duke’s 85-52 victory, knocking down four of his five attempts from distance and displaying the shooting stroke that made him the No. 24 prospect in the ESPN 100.

Kennard’s hot shooting continued in the second half when he piled onto his total with a pair of 3-pointers and continued to stretch the floor on offense for Duke. With the freshman on the floor along with Matt Jones and Grayson Allen, the Blue Devils’ three potent perimeter shooters allowed the team to eventually run away with a big victory. The trio accounted for all eight of Duke’s 3-pointers and took 14 of the team’s 15 attempts.

“Overall in the first five games my shot just wasn’t falling,” Kennard said. “Some were just in and out, but shooters can have off nights. I had a few in a row to start the season, but we’re going to build off what we did today, we’ll keep working hard.”

Kennard’s slow start was one of the biggest questions facing Duke in the early part of the season. Despite working for open looks, the guard simply could not get shots to fall. A big part of that may have been adjusting to the speed of the college game. Although most newcomers tend to rush too much when placed in a new situation, Krzyzewski said he thought Kennard was not playing fast enough.

But extensive work with assistant head coach Jon Scheyer to improve speed and make plays off the curl appears to be paying dividends for Kennard.

“He wasn’t shooting the ball at the speed the game was,” Krzyzewski said. “What I told him, I said ‘The game is the same speed at the free-throw line, so he’s 14-for-14 [at the charity stripe entering Sunday’s game].’ You’re not in the right lane anymore, you’re in the left lane.”

The mid-court moment was just as important for Kennard as it was for Krzyzewski, who has stressed the need to be more outwardly emotional with his young team in the early part of the year. Although Duke had slowly begun to pull away from the Aggies, the basket seemed to propel the Blue Devils to another level for the remainder of the first half. The high intensity continued well into the second half as Duke used a 16-0 run to salt the game away.

“Coach is in rare form right now,” senior Amile Jefferson said. “He’s at a great place with his fire, his intensity, his emotion…. He’s bringing it. If all our guys could bring it like Coach is right now, we would be a really dangerous team.”