The Blue Devils got all they could handle from a veteran Army squad, but Duke's freshmen ultimately proved too much for the Black Knights to overcome.
Tyus Jones and Jahlil Okafor paced No. 4 Duke to a 93-73 win against Army Sunday at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The freshman duo combined for 37 points, with Jones contributing 16 points and 10 assists and Okafor tallying 21 points and pulling down eight rebounds. The effort was the first double-double of Jones' career.
"I hadn't been shooting the ball well the past few games, but the coaches believe in me and have confidence me," Jones said. "They told me 'Just keep taking your shots' if I get open shots. I'm not worried about stats, not worried about points, anything like that, as long as we win."
Jones scored 13 of his 16 points in the first half, helping pick up the slack for a Duke offense that was without Justise Winslow for the vast majority of the period mired in foul trouble and a backcourt that shot 1-of-8 from long range before halftime.
A disciplined Army defense forced Duke to work deep into the shot clock in the first half, but the Blue Devils still seemed to be able to get the shot they wanted.
"It's about being patient. We have plays that we run for when the shot clock is at 10, when the shot clock is at seven," junior forward Amile Jefferson said. "Our guys didn't get rattled much. Even if we didn't have a shot, we didn't rush it, we didn't force it. Before that shot clock hit zero, we got off a great shot. Guys set great screens, our guards did a great job getting into the lane today."
With Duke (7-0) ahead by a slim 14-11 score with just more than 11 minutes remaining before halftime, the Blue Devils again worked deep into the shot clock, the Army defense proving tough to crack. Off a broken play, the ball swung to Jones, who had no choice but to launch a triple from a step beyond the arc.
Swish.
Jones' trey ignited the first Duke run of the afternoon, a 7-0 spurt that was quelled only briefly by a 3-pointer from Army's Kyle Wilson. After the junior's basket cut the lead to 21-14, the Blue Devils rattled off the next six and looked poised to seal the game in the first half as it had in its other three home contests this season.
But Wilson would not let that happen. Army's leading scorer poured in 17 points in the first half, finishing both in the lane and from beyond the arc. A 5-0 Army run in the half's waning minutes cut into the Duke lead, and the Blue Devils headed to the locker room leading only 41-28.
After not making a field goal in either of Duke's last two contests, Jones got into a rhythm early against the Black Knights (5-1). The Apple Valley, Minn., native dropped in a pair of floaters early before hitting the key triple from the right wing to fuel the Blue Devil run.
Krzyzeweski said that the Blue Devils have put Jones in more ball-screen action of late, allowing the floor general to attack the rim looking either to score or find open teammates. With Army's defense keying on Okafor, Jones found room to look for his own shot, but more important were his 10 assists—half of Duke's total—and zero giveaways playing with Army at a run-and-gun pace.
"He played a heck of a game this afternoon," Krzyzewski said. "His ego is not defined by shooting, which is really uncommon in today's day and age. Most kids define themselves when they hit a shot. [For Tyus], it's about how his team's playing, and in that way he's pretty mature."
After haltime, the Black Knights continued to threaten. Head coach Zach Spiker's team plays at one of the quicker paces in the country, and after being mostly bottled up in the first half, Army got out in transition in the final 20 minutes. Point guard Dylan Cox snuck ahead of the pack for three lay-ups to keep the Black Knights within striking distance, shrinking the deficit each time Duke seemed ready to pull away.
"We played really well and then had a couple lapses and then—'Boom'—they came right back," Krzyzewski said. "When they got down by about 20, [Cox] just said, 'We're not going to stop today.'"
Wilson didn't get the same open looks in the second half—his only two points after intermission came from the charity stripe—which Jefferson chalked up to better communication from the Duke defense. Krzyzewski said Army's up-tempo style initially disrupted the Blue Devil game-plan of not leaving Wilson to help, since different Duke players were tasked with picking up the Black Knight guard each time Army pushed downcourt to prevent easy transition points.
Inside, the Black Knight comeback bid hit a 6-foot-11 snag in the form of Okafor. The Chicago product scored more than 20 points for the second straight game, helping the Blue Devils rack up 50 points in the paint compared to just 26 for Army. Okafor and Jefferson also combined for 11 offensive rebounds that kept possessions alive and led to 20 second-chance points.
When Okafor checked back in after a second-half rest, the center scored five straight points to lead the 14-4 charge that would put the game out of reach. The first bucket of Okafor's 5-0 personal run came on a thunderous alley-oop from Jones, as Krzyzewski dusted off an out-of-bounds play from the archives to give his team a boost.
"We had two out-of-bounds play that we hadn't used for a while that he got two dunks on," Krzyzewski said. "Every once in awhile when you can call a guy's number and get something [productive], it can get you maybe a spurt, and I thought he had it and it excited everybody. They're monstrous dunks."
With a little more than 11 minutes to play, Okafor split a pair of free throws, but Jefferson corralled the errant attempt. The ball swung outside to the other Blue Devil captain, Quinn Cook, who deposited his first trey of the game to push the lead to 19. Army answered with a bucket on the other end, but Jones fed junior Rasheed Sulaimon beautifully with a quick low bounce pass in transition to keep the Black Knights at bay.
Duke now shifts its focus to Wednesday night's prime-time showdown at No. 2 Wisconsin—also undefeated—in the ACC/Big Ten challenge. Tip-off is scheduled for 9:30 p.m. from the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisc.
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