Beyond the Arc: Duke basketball vs. Wisconsin

In the most anticipated matchup of the season, No. 4 Duke prevailed against No. 2 Wisconsin, earning a 80-70 win at the Kohl Center Wednesday night. Although most people expected the game to hinge on the battle between the two preseason First-Team All-Americans—Duke’s Jahlil Okafor and Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky—it was the Blue Devil backcourt that carried the team to victory. Guards Tyus Jones, Quinn Cook and Rasheed Sulaimon combined to score 49 points, with each one hitting more than 50 percent of their shots as Duke recorded the most significant triumph for the ACC in the ACC/Big Ten challenge.

Revisiting the three keys to the game:

• Contain Kaminsky with Okafor and the other bigs: Okafor struggled with foul trouble and had to sit out significant minutes in both halves, which forced Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski to go with a different approach to guarding the Badgers’ talented 7-footer. Krzyzewski used a rotation of defenders on Kaminsky, providing double-and-triple teams to help on the big man when he was mismatched against smaller guards. The unconventional look was able to confuse Kaminsky and the Wisconsin offense just enough and keep it from settling into a groove as the game wore on. Kaminsky finished with a solid stat line of 17 points on 5-of-12 shooting to go along with nine boards, but he did not dominate the game like he has dominated other big contests in the past and missed several easy opportunities near the rim.
• Hold down the defensive end: This wasn’t the Blue Devils' strongest defensive effort from the season, but they certainly held their own against the best offense they’ve faced thus far. Keeping Kaminsky to a relatively quiet 17 points can be considered a success, but Badger guard Traevon Jackson was extremely effective, racking up 25 points on just 12 shots. Duke struggled a bit with rotations early and allowed Wisconsin to get several open looks from the perimeter, but ramped up the defensive intensity as the game wore on. The Blue Devils held the Badgers to 30 percent shooting from the floor in the second half, coming through with key stops on defense as the offense slowly pushed the lead out of reach.
• Win on the perimeter: This was the area where Duke really separated itself from its Big Ten foe. The ability of the Blue Devil guards to penetrate off the dribble and create quality shot attempts—whether it be for themselves or open teammates—was the difference in the game and enabled Duke to pull away in the second half. The Blue Devils knocked down seven of their 12 attempts from behind the arc, led by a cumulative 6-of-9 performance from Jones, Cook and Sulaimon. Although Jackson gashed the Duke defense for some easy buckets, the Blue Devils were able to clamp down on sharpshooter Josh Gasser, limiting him to just four shots and seven points.

Three key plays:

• 14:14 second half: With the game tied at 43, Sulaimon got the ball on the left wing and let one fly from way downtown, his feet closer to the out-of-bounds line than the 3-point stripe. The ball rattled around the rim and off the backboard, but found its way into the bottom of the net, giving Duke a 46-43 lead that it would never relinquish.
• 3:44 second half: With the Blue Devils up by five, Sulaimon made another key play to ignite his squad. He knocked the ball loose from Kaminsky, which led to a mad scramble and diving bodies near midcourt. But Sulaimon tracked down the ball first, tipping it ahead to Jones, who finished in transition with a smooth layup to extend the Duke advantage to seven.
• 1:23 second half: This one was the dagger. Following a Wisconsin timeout, Justise Winslow was in-bounding the ball for Duke near midcourt, with the Blue Devils ahead by six and on the brink of putting the game away for good. The Badger defense was focused on denying the backwards pass to the Duke guards, but Winslow found the other end of the court wide open. Winslow executed an easy give-and-go with Okafor, punctuated by his own emphatic two-handed jam as he took off from the free throw line.

Building off his first career double-double, Jones stole the show again Wednesady night. He hit shots from all over the floor en route to a career-high 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting, the first 20-point performance by a Blue Devil not named Okafor. The Apple Valley, Minn., native added six rebounds and four assists to round out his stat sheet. Jones committed just one turnover, giving him just eight total turnovers to go along with 46 assists—and an incredible 5.75:1 assist-to-turnover ratio—through the first eight games of his career.

Although typically known for his poise and court savvy rather than his scoring, Jones has shown an ability to rise to the occasion and be a dominant scorer when the situation calls for it. He was Duke’s leading scorer in its key matchup against then-No. 19 Michigan State and seems to have acquired a knack for knocking down the shots that shift a game’s momentum. With the game tied as the first half drew to a close, Jones assisted on one 3-pointer and then calmly hit back-to-back treys of his own, silencing a Wisconsin crowd that was looking to spur its team to a halftime lead.

And the Wisconsin game ball goes to...Traevon Jackson.

Not a real tough choice here. Jackson was the Badgers’ only answer for the Blue Devils’ high-scoring attack, tallying a season-high 25 points in a very efficient performance. The senior point guard connected on seven of his 12 field goal attempts—including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc—and was a perfect 8-for-8 from the charity stripe.

Jackson’s explosiveness and quickness off the dribble enabled him to easily get past Duke defenders for most of the night, skills that could make him a dangerous weapon as he looks to improve on his 10.7 points per game average from a season ago and lead Wisconsin back to the Final Four along with Kaminsky.