Freshman Jabari Parker and redshirt sophomore Rodney Hood combined for 44 points—including 29 in the first half—to put Davidson behind early in Duke's season-opening win, 111-77 Friday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium. With the two new Blue Devils leading the way, four Duke players registered 20-plus point totals for the first time in program history.
“After we played Drury… I said when you play Drury, you don’t know who scored. They just scored, and I think our team was like that tonight,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “They just shared the ball quickly and scored pretty fast. And all of a sudden you got points. You got 59 points in a half.”
Against the Wildcats (0-1), the No. 4 Blue Devils (1-0) wasted no time showing they could put points on the board against the smaller Davidson lineup. Parker opened the scoring with a jump shot and Duke hit its first five field goals attempts.
The Blue Devils’ two 6-foot-8 forwards did not let up on the gas. Parker shot a perfect 5-of-5 from the field in the first half, and Hood missed just one of his seven field goal attempts.
Six minutes into the contest, Duke had built just a four-point lead, having struggled to prevent the drive without committing a foul. Starting forward Amile Jefferson had picked up his second foul just four minutes into the game and sat out the rest of the half.
But when Hood and Parker kicked the tempo up a notch, the Wildcats could not keep up. With Jefferson out, Krzyzewski opted for a smaller lineup, featuring Hood and Parker at the four and five positions that helped Duke push its attack.
“Amile was in foul trouble so we had to go small, and get some scoring options,” Hood said. “We may do that sometimes, just to go faster up and down the court.”
At the 12:59 minute mark, Hood scored to reach nine points for the game and spark a 19-4 run.
Parker followed suit. The freshman caught the ball on the perimeter, pump faked, regrouped and calmly knocked down the three, yelling, “That’s all day,” as he ran down the court.
“Our fans played a big role,” Parker said of the team’s performance in his debut. “We just fed off their energy. It was just so great playing in Cameron, getting the crowd, the whole emotion. And we showed the product out on the floor."
Feeding Parker or Hood each time down the floor, the Blue Devils opened up opportunities on the perimeter. Sulaimon knocked down 2-of-3 3-pointers and racked up 10 points in the first half. Cook took advantage of the openings as well, scoring eight first-half points and dishing out five assists in the period as Duke went into the break leading 59-39 on 71.4 percent shooting. In addition to their scoring efficiency, the Blue Devils turned the ball over just once in the period.
Although preseason Southern Conference player of the year De’Mon Brooks scored 24 points on 7-of-9 shooting, and guard Tom Droney added 16 for the Wildcats, Duke maintained a double-digit lead throughout the second half.
The 6-foot-7, 230-pound Brooks presented a challenging matchup for the Blue Devils, and playing with four Davidson guards to dish to, the forward often had 1-on-1 matchups with Hood and Parker.
“He’s an ox down there,” Hood said. “He’s strong, he’s built, he takes his time in the post, and he makes you guard him. He’s a really good player.”
Because of Davidson’s potential to get back in games through 3-point shooting, Duke strategically held back help on Brooks, giving him better opportunities to score in the paint, Krzyzewski said.
The tactic worked. The Wildcats shot just 3-for-21 from beyond the arc on the night.
Offensively, Parker and Hood kept filling out their stat sheets, but it was Cook and Sulaimon who took on even greater offensive roles to keep Davidson out of the contest—combining for 23 second-half points.
Sulaimon also contributed on the boards, recording seven rebounds—good for second on the team behind Hood’s nine.
“Rasheed had a heck of a game,” Krzyzewski said. ”There was a thing that we went to with Rasheed that they had a hard time stopping. He either scored or he got his teammate a bucket. It was kind of a little like the Ohio State game [last fall]…. There was just something that he had going that made the whole team better.”
With just 10 minutes remaining in the second-half and Duke leading comfortably 79-60, Parker got the crowd back on its feet. Resetting the offense, Cook backed away from the perimeter and floated a pass toward the weak side of the rim, where a loosely guarded Parker through down an authoritative alley-oop dunk for the most exciting two of his 22 points on the night.
"The first win is very important," Parker said. "We can build blocks from there. I think that we have a good foundation right now, and we just keep on going and building the biggest tower we can build."
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