Duke struggled through scoring droughts for much of last season, failing to score more than 86 points in any game.
Monday night against New Mexico State (0-2), the No. 13 Blue Devils (2-0) matched that total in an 86-61 victory, despite suffering a long second-half dry spell. In the process, they showed both the development in this year's team-frequently pushing the fastbreak and putting the ball in the basket.
After Duke increased its lead to 61-30 with 13:37 remaining, the Aggies went on a 22-8 run over the next eight minutes.
"Give them credit. They're a good team," sophomore Gerald Henderson said. "But there were things we didn't do too well. We left their guys open a lot, [and] we overhelped."
The Blue Devils gave New Mexico State several open looks, but the Aggies' inability to make those shots prevented them from further closing the gap. Duke also missed some shots, including many layups.
"We can't afford to hope that somebody just misses shots," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "They got some open ones in the corner. I'd say there were about 10. They may have hit one or two, but they were open."
Had it not been for that good fortune, Duke may have been in trouble late in the game. The Blue Devils went on a 21-2 run early in the first half to jump out to a 25-8 lead. But after pushing the tempo and pressuring New Mexico State for much of the contest, Duke relaxed in the second half, leading to the scoring drought that was reminiscent.
"We put on the gas for so long, and then we took it off a little bit," Greg Paulus said. "When you're playing great teams, they're going to take advantage of that.... When we didn't stay aggressive and strong defensively and offensively, they took advantage of our offensive mistakes and our defensive mistakes."
The Blue Devils, however, countered that Aggie run with one of their own, scoring 17 of the final 26 points to put the game firmly out of reach. Jon Scheyer scored 13 in that stretch, including three treys, and led all scorers with 22 points on the night.
Senior captain DeMarcus Nelson had 14 points and seven rebounds, and Paulus recorded nine points and eight assists, leading the team with four steals as Duke forced 26 turnovers.
The junior point guard paced a Blue Devil offense that continues to play a more uptempo pace. That strategy remained effective against the first NCAA Tournament team-and also the tallest squad-Duke has played so far. New Mexico State started guard Chris Cole over 6-foot-11 center Martin Iti to match up better with a relatively small Blue Devil squad.
"We didn't think the interior was the strength of [Duke]," New Mexico State head coach Marvin Menzies said. "We felt like they had strong perimeter players, wing players, guard players, so we thought we would have to try to approach that in a different manner."
The Blue Devils, however, outscored the Aggies 36-30 in the paint as Iti was saddled with foul trouble before fouling out with seven and a half minutes to go.
Kyle Singler also battled foul trouble, picking up his third and fourth fouls in a 10-second span early in the second half. That sequence forced him to play cautiously the rest of the game, limiting the Blue Devils' effectiveness inside.
"We have to look at Kyle's four fouls," Krzyzewski said. "He can't get a fourth foul with 18:14 to go in the second half.... He's a real good player, and all of a sudden he's playing with that foul trouble. And he stayed in. We massaged it, but it still wasn't like he can [play]."
Even with Singler being hampered and Duke suffering a late dry spell, the Blue Devils managed to score a lot of points-a quality that should bode well for the rest of the season.
"We did well," Krzyzewski said. "We won by 25 points, so we did okay. The last 12 games of the season last year, I would've liked to score. But we can get better."
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