After unexpectedly seeing its 46-game home winning streak vanish at the hands of Maryland last week, third-ranked Duke returns home in search of reasserting its homecourt dominance tonight at 9 p.m. against Florida State.
Based solely on statistical terms, Duke (19-3, 10-1 in the ACC) possesses a seemingly insurmountable edge against the Seminoles. The Blue Devils have always dominated FSU, snatching 16 out of 18 meetings overall, including 10 straight and all nine at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
In the first matchup between these conference foes this season, FSU (11-12, 4-6) played a strong first half and went into the locker room with a 34-32 lead. The way the second half unfolded, however, it would have been wiser for the Seminoles to have stayed in the locker room. After the break, the Blue Devils exploded and outscored the Seminoles 53-20.
However, such statistics and past outcomes do not decide games, as the Blue Devils learned the hard way last week.
"Those things don't matter that much at all," junior Nate James said. "It's all about playing Duke basketball and continuing that great tradition. We just have to come out to the arena to play as if every game were our last."
The Seminoles can play very impressively at times and quite horrendously at others. They returned to Tallahassee triumphantly after a win at the Dean Dome, and they nearly pulled off an upset victory on the road against high-flying Auburn before ultimately losing
Small forward Damous Anderson and shooting guard Ron Hale, two of FSU's three key seniors, present the largest threats to the Blue Devils' chances of victory. Against Clemson, Anderson poured in a career-high 28 points, bringing up his point per game average over the last 10 matchups to 18.6.
While Anderson rides his hot streak into Cameron, Hale, the team's leading scorer, has not played his best basketball recently. In Saturday's debacle at Clemson, Hale only managed six points on a dismal 1-for-12 shooting performance from the floor. Since last season, he has only managed a lackluster 16 points in three games against Duke.
Despite these poor numbers, the Blue Devils are well aware of Hale's potential.
"Hale is one of the best players in the ACC," forward Shane Battier said. "He will definitely come into his last game at Cameron firing."
The other Seminole starters do little to instill fear in their opponents. Capably-but far from spectacularly-filling their respective roles, junior point guard Delvon Arrington and senior power forward Oliver Simmons both average near eight points and five rebounds per game.
Nevertheless, FSU's most glaring weakness resides in its interior play. Though starting sophomore center David Anderson stands 7-feet tall, he lacks a real presence in the paint and averages a mere 2.8 points and 4.3 rebounds per game. Aside from Anderson, the Seminoles have three players at 6-10, but none of them command enough respect from opposing teams to make a marked difference.
Duke, on the other hand, seems poised to prove to the nation that last week's loss to the Terps was nothing more than a hiccup. To do so, the Blue Devils plan to focus on their defensive play. Before allowing a tidy 65 points against Georgia Tech on Saturday, Duke had yielded an uncharacteristically high average of 90 points in its previous three contests.
"The key to our success is our coming out and playing good defense," Battier said. "It's going to be all about picking up our overall intensity on the defensive side of the court."
While they look to improve upon their defense, the Blue Devils' explosive offense does not show any signs of slowing down. If the team continues to average 89.7 points per game, this year's installment will be the third-highest scoring team in Duke history. Accounting for nearly half that offensive production are the freshmen, who have exceeded all expectations and have acted as catalysts in Duke's reemergence atop the ACC.
As March approaches, the Blue Devils aren't necessarily worrying about individual opponents, but rather on sharpening their own level of play.
"Most importantly, it is not about who we are playing, it's about the fact that Duke is playing," Battier said.
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