Great players make great plays on the biggest stage, or so goes the old adage.
While a national championship wasn’t at stake last night, Kyle Singler’s return to form certainly has Duke fans thinking the senior might have another chance to add to his Final Four resume. In the No. 1 Blue Devils’ biggest nonconference game of the spring, Singler led Duke past No. 24 Temple (21-6) 78-61 in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
“He was just not to be denied,” Owls’ head coach Fran Dunphy said.
“Kyle played a sensational game,” Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “He’s been an amazing player.”
The senior had 28 points and six rebounds on the night—his highest total since putting up 30 in November against Oregon—and he scored one-third of his team’s points. Singler’s renewed presence was crucial on a night that saw Nolan Smith struggle to hit shots. Smith didn’t take over the game in the manner in which his teammates have grown accustomed, scoring 15 points on 5-of-17 shooting and dishing out four assists.
Luckily, his co-captain was there to pick up the slack.
“[Singler’s] going to do what he has to do for us to win,” Mason Plumlee said. “If it’s working, he’s not going to change. Then again, if we need points or somebody to step up, he’s right there . . . he’s the one person you can depend on defensively and offensively every game.”
The first half, though, was all about defense. Duke (26-2) shot just 37 percent from the field, slightly worse than Temple’s 44-percent clip. The Owls’ starting forwards, Lavoy Allen and Rahlir Jefferson, controlled the inside, opening up the paint for 20 of the team’s 24 points in the opening period. Allen finished the night with the game’s only double-double, 17 points and 13 rebounds. Jefferson added 11 points and five rebounds of his own.
With their jumpers not falling, and the referees calling a tight game, the Blue Devils turned to a drive-heavy offense in order to get to the free throw line. The adjustment paid off, as their seven-point halftime lead came entirely from the charity stripe, where they made 8-of-9 compared to Temple’s 1-of-5.
“We wish we could start games better,” Smith said. “We want to start to come out attacking earlier and play with the energy that we want to play with for a whole game. But we come in at halftime and make the correct adjustments.”
After shooting 3-of-8 in the first half, Singler exploded in the second. Ditching his reliance on a deep jump shot, he started Duke’s 10-2 run to open the period with a jumper in the paint. The senior then scored the rest of his points in the paint, and was a perfect 8-of-8 from the free throw line. Working to the 6-foot-8 forward’s benefit was the three-guard lineup employed by Dunphy, which meant Singler had at least three inches on any of his defenders. Making matters worse for the Owls, guards Juan Fernandez and Aaron Brown could only play limited minutes because of early foul trouble.
“[Singler] was impossible to defend,” Krzyzewski said. “He’s had some of those shots in the last two weeks, and I think he’s been taking them like a jump shooter. Tonight he took them with more physicality, much more force and finished.”
The Blue Devils’ run to start the second half was also highlighted by Mason Plumlee, whose ferocious dunks on consecutive possessions put the crowd in a frenzy. After a defensive shift left him alone in the post at the 13-minute mark, his turnaround slam extended the Duke lead to 14 points. When he stole the ball near midcourt on the ensuing defensive possession, the sophomore streaked down the middle to catch a perfect alley-oop pass from Seth Curry, sending the ball home with both hands. The sophomore finished the night with six points and 13 rebounds.
Plumlee’s alley-oop was just two of Duke’s 18 points off Temple’s 12 turnovers, while the Blue Devils gave up just six points on turnovers. Capitalizing on the turnovers allowed Duke to go on several second-half runs, as did improved defensive rebounding.
“I thought our defensive rebounding in the second half led to some runs,” Krzyzewski said. “We got a double-digit lead because we rebounded the ball three or four times straight and got a fast break on it.”
The Owls were unable to cut the lead to single digits from that point on, and the Blue Devils cruised to their 35th straight home win.
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