The men's basketball team certainly did not come out as sluggish last night as it did against the EA Sports All-Stars. However, it finished the game just as strongly as it did last week.
Starting on the strength of freshman sensation Luol Deng's 8-2 run, the Blue Devils took the lead in the first two minutes and never looked back. Although it looked as though the offense was going to have to rely mostly on the London native's play, the rest of the team stepped up on both sides of the ball, leading to a strong team effort and an easy Duke victory.
"I thought we played better than we did last week," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "I thought we played well defensively in the second half especially."
Right off the bat, Deng's versatility was evident. To open the game, he hit two three-pointers from the top of the key, as well as a 10-foot jumper on the baseline. Later on, he showed off more of his repertoire on back-to-back plays with a rebound and tip-in off of a missed Shelden Williams shot, and a strong cut through the lane which led to a dunk. Deng also added two assists and seven rebounds to his 17 points.
"My mindset was to come out aggressive and take what I had," Deng said. "I looked at my matchup in the beginning--they had the big guy on me--and he was so scared of me driving that he just backed off, and I decided that I was going to just keep shooting it."
After the Nike Elite defense adjusted to slow down the swingman, the rest of Duke's scorers heated up.
Following an 0-for-3 from the field shooting performance in the first half, Williams went 7-for-8 in the second, including both an ally-oop dunk and a massive tomahawk slam. Junior guard Daniel Ewing scored 15 points and had four assists and three steals. Sophomore J.J. Redick continued his lights-out shooting in the preseason, going 6-for-8 from beyond the arc and finishing with a game-high 23 points. Forward Shavlik Randolph added 18 points on 7-for-8 shooting from the field.
Several players said that the key to the team's second-half offensive explosion--Duke scored 57 points in the final 20 minutes on 62.9 percent field-goal shooting--was its intensity on defense.
"We made a point to start on the defensive end," senior captain Chris Duhon said. "We were just trying to get transition points off our defense--off the rebounds and the steals--and just get easy baskets to the point were guys could get in a rhythm and make shots."
Having worked on their defense and communication over the past week, the Blue Devils looked like a very solid team Wednesday, ready to start the season as No. 2 in the country.
"I like our team," Krzyzewski said. "I think our team obviously has a lot of improvement to go, but we are a good basketball team. We can come at people a few different ways and we are a team that can score points. We just have to be able to defend."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.