Home sweet home.
Duke returned to Cameron Indoor Stadium for the first time in 19 days Wednesday night, easily dispatching Colorado State 87-64.
During the time away, the No. 7 Blue Devils (8-1) won three games in three days to take the Maui Invitational, then suffered their first loss of the season eight days ago against Ohio State. That loss stuck with Duke as it spent a full week preparing for its matchup with the Rams (5-4).
“It was eight hard days that we needed,” forward Josh Hairston said of the gap between games. “We needed to get a whole lot tougher, and these eight days really tested us. The coaches really pushed us during practice, but we didn’t break. We made strides as a team, and that’s what we needed.”
Austin Rivers carried the scoring load for the Blue Devils, especially in the second half, leading the team with 17 points while shooting 5-of-9 from the field and 3-of-5 from the 3-point line.
“He had a good game tonight,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “I thought in the second half when we weren’t playing well defensively his offense kept that margin of 15 to 17 points—it was all on Austin, I thought, during that time to keep us ahead like that.”
In the first half, Andre Dawkins made waves for Duke after he was replaced by Tyler Thornton in the starting lineup. Dawkins got off to a torrid start, hitting 6-of-8 shots from the field and was also 3-for-5 from beyond the arc for 15 first-half points. Toward the end of the period, however, Dawkins got tangled up with an opposing player and went down to the floor in pain, and would not return. Krzyzewski called the injury a back spasm and said Dawkins’ status would be updated before Saturday’s matchup against Washington.
Meanwhile, Mason and Miles Plumlee took advantage of an undersized Colorado State lineup to dominate on the interior. Each brother missed only one shot from the field, and both finished with 14 points and a smattering of entertaining dunks.
Mason, in particular, shined on the defensive end, pulling down 10 rebounds and registering five blocked shots to go along with four steals.
“There wasn’t much interior defense,” Krzyzewski said. “It was more help defense on drives.... We have three guys who are really good shot blockers—Mason, Miles and Ryan [Kelly] can block shots also. Overall we protected the bucket pretty well.”
The Blue Devils’ team defense seemed to overwhelm the undersized Rams for most of the contest. Colorado State came into the game shooting 45.7 percent from the field and 45.6 percent from the 3-point line, good for second-best in the nation from long range. Duke managed to hold the Rams to 40.7 percent from the field, and only 36.4 percent from beyond the arc—including just 1-for-6 from 3-point range in the second half.
In addition to a total of nine blocked shots, the Blue Devils also forced 15 turnovers in the game making use of suffocating ball denial. Duke was able to convert those turnovers into 18 points on the offensive end, many coming on electrifying fast break dunks that energized the crowd.
One bright spot for Colorado State was forward Greg Smith. The 6-foot-6 junior came into the game as the team’s third leading scorer, but rose to the occasion with 18 points, making just under half of his shots from the field. Smith also pulled down seven rebounds, but struggled defensively as he often drew the difficult assignment of guarding one of the much larger Plumlee brothers in the paint.
With a home-cooked victory now under their belts, the Blue Devils will be looking to carry the toughness they displayed Wednesday night into New York this weekend against Washington.
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