The No. 1 and undefeated Duke basketball squad begins conference play this afternoon against Wake Forest at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Here are the three keys for before the 12 p.m. tipoff:
Mason and the double team
Davidson had a strategy to contain Mason Plumlee and it worked: Double team him on the block. Plumlee was limited to a season-low 10 points against the Wildcats in Duke's last game as he regularly found two bodies on him whenever he got the ball. What may ultimately determine how well he handles the double team is his passing ability—if he can make teams pay by kicking the ball out well and finding the open guy, he'll punish teams for doubling down on him. If he can't make teams pay? Well, he should get used to being surrounded by more than one body.
Is slow starting becoming a thing?
The Blue Devils are making a habit out of coming out of the gate slowly. They did it against both Santa Clara and Davidson. Neither of those games turned out to be problematic, but the slow starts may become an issue in ACC play. Wake Forest is another team that they can probably handle starting slowly against—they're not that good—but the Blue Devils need to make strong starts routine so it doesn't become a problem later in the season. Duke doesn't want to be in a position where they're forced to scramble late in the game against teams like N.C. State, UNC, Virginia or Maryland.
Is the rotation set?
So much of the talk during non-conference play is about observing who gets minutes and when, to see who will be entrusted with time during conference play late in the season. Thus far, we've seen an extremely thin rotation from Coach K: Josh Hairston and Tyler Thornton are the only bench players to regularly see minutes, while Amile Jefferson and Alex Murphy have seen their names called on rare occasions only. Will that change? Will Coach K let Marshall Plumlee work his way in? Do these guys get meaningful minutes if Duke pulls away early? All of this will be interesting to watch this afternoon.
Stay here at The Blue Zone for live analysis during the game and follow @dukebasketball on Twitter for the quickest updates.
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