Duke started off its pursuit of a fifth national title with an explosive offensive performance in a 141-68 rout of Saint Augustine’s Saturday.
And as Kyrie Irving put it, the competition didn’t even match the intensity of the Blue-White game a week ago.
“I felt really comfortable out there,” Irving, who finished with 17 points and seven assists with just one turnover, said. “We’ve been practicing really hard lately, and... our practices are a lot harder than the game.... It’s not a breeze, but it’s a lot easier than practice.”
The Blue Devils opened the game with a 30-1 run, holding the clearly overmatched Falcons without a made field goal for the first eight minutes of the game. Duke’s fast-break fireworks were made possible by its top-notch defense. In the first half alone, the team scored 26 of its 73 points on the break—mostly on a series of hair-raising alley-oops reminiscent of last weekend’s dunk contest.
The display was all the more impressive because the team had only once practiced its up-tempo offense.
“If we start off just running, guys may never pay attention to the half-court [offense] like they should,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “On Friday we had a practice where we talked about pushing it more and just having some quick hitters.”
“When you have two guards like Kyrie and myself you need to put the big guys rebounding and have them find one of us running down the court,” Nolan Smith added. “It seemed to work, so we’re going to get better at it and just keep working.”
The Blue Devils’ depth behind its talented starting guards facilitated its up-tempo game Saturday. Duke had seven of its 10 primary rotation players reach double-digit scoring, led by Kyle Singler’s 31 points—which he racked up in only 22 minutes.
“The amount of weapons we have, we feel like we can relax when we go to the bench,” Smith said. “Because we have guys like Seth [Curry] and Andre [Dawkins] coming in the game who can pick us up—we’re going to get better when we go to our bench.”
While the evening had to be considered a resounding success, the Blue Devils did show they are not without flaws. Duke allowed St. Augustine’s to shoot 50 percent from behind the arc for the game and forced only five turnovers after the break, compared to 20 in the opening frame. Also of concern was foul trouble: freshman Josh Hairston brought energy to the floor but fouled out in only 13 minutes of playing time. Sophomore Mason Plumlee—who struggled to stay out of foul trouble last year—picked up four fouls in only 19 minutes of action, overshadowing an offensive performance in which he converted six shots for 13 points.
Krzyzewski, however, didn’t seem concerned by the errors and does not anticipate that it will be difficult to keep his team from reaching its potential.
“Our guys are motivated because they want to be really good,” Krzyzewski said. “I never have a hard time motivating my team. They’re playing at Duke, they’re playing in the ACC and they’re playing a great schedule. They love to play—they’re good guys who love to play, so motivation is the least of my worries.... Every one of these guys knows they have a chance to get significant minutes, to play a significant role.”
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