Last season, the Blue Devils played their last ACC road game at Lawrence Joel Coliseum against a hungry Wake Forest team and suffered a stunning 10-point loss—their seventh of the season and a sign of things to come in the NCAA tournament.
The narrative is a little different this time around.
No. 2 Duke will take on the Demon Deacons at Lawrence Joel Coliseum Wednesday at 9 p.m. in its first ACC road game. Although the Blue Devils are once again heavy favorites against Wake Forest, they understand the difficulty of earning road wins in conference play, as they are 1-4 in their past five ACC road openers.
In addition to battling an energetic crowd, Duke will have its hands full with two of the better players in the ACC—juniors Codi Miller-McIntyre and Devin Thomas—as it tries to avenge last season’s loss and notch its 14th straight double-digit win to open the season.
“We know the challenge we have ahead of us—the ACC is really a different animal once you start going on the road,” assistant coach Jon Scheyer said. “[For us] it [all] starts with those two guys.”
The Blue Devils (13-0, 1-0 in the ACC) are hoping that Wednesday’s contest follows the same script as Saturday’s ACC opener against Boston College. Led by freshman center Jahlil Okafor and a stingy defense, Duke pulled away from the Eagles at the end of the first half and didn’t show any sign of a second-half letdown.
Although the Blue Devil offense—which ranks third in the nation in field goal percentage and fourth in points per game—continued to shine and put up 85 points, the best thing about Saturday’s contest for Duke’s coaches was the team’s defensive intensity.
If the Blue Devils can defend Miller-McIntyre and Thomas—Wake Forest’s only two double-digit scorers—the same way, the Demon Deacons (8-7, 0-2) will have to rely on a bevy of unproven role players to beat Duke exactly like Boston College did.
“We really tried to make [Boston College star guard Olivier] Hanlan’s life difficult,” Scheyer said. “He scored, but it was hard for him. Any great player you play, our goal isn’t to shut him out, it’s to take away the things they do the best.”
Thomas should provide a test for the Blue Devils in the paint that very few have been unable to, due to Okafor’s knack for getting opposing big men in foul trouble. The 6-foot-9, 255-pound forward is coming off a 31-point, 11-rebound performance that nearly lifted Wake Forest past No. 5 Louisville Sunday—the Cardinals prevailed 85-76—and his 9.7 boards per game correlate with the Demon Deacons’ biggest strength.
Wake Forest’s 40.5 rebounds per contest rank in the top 25 nationally and show that head coach Danny Manning’s players are still playing hard despite early-season struggles in his first year at the helm. The Demon Deacons only have one player on their team with more than 20 3-pointers on the season— Mitchell Wilbekin, the brother of former Florida star Scottie Wilbekin—and are at their best when they can generate points in the paint and on second shots.
After giving up 16 offensive rebounds in last season’s loss, boxing out will likely be the top priority for Duke, especially when swingman Justise Winslow plays the four. But an almost equally important task for the Blue Devils will be staying in front of the lightning-quick Miller-McIntyre, whose 13 points and eight assists last year came on a steady diet of dribble penetration and living in the paint.
The 6-foot-3 guard is not known for his outside shooting, but is a tough finisher in the paint thanks to his 205-pound frame.
“With a guy like Codi Miller-McIntyre, the one thing he does a great job of is really pushing it in transition,” Scheyer said. “He [just] gets it and goes. For our defense, to get back, to have five guys sprint back and defend our basket—transition defense—is a big key.”
On the offensive end, Duke has several favorable matchups against a team that ranks 215th in the nation in points allowed per game with 67.7. Early on, it will look to see how how Wake Forest decides to handle Okafor before settling into its usual sets. And if reserves Matt Jones and Rasheed Sulaimon continue their recent strong play, the number of Blue Devil weapons could lead to a few big Duke runs as long as the defense holds up.
But what might make this trip to Winston Salem stand out most is senior leadership.
Senior guard Quinn Cook averages 14.5 points per game and knows the sense of urgency needed in ACC games better than any of his teammates and better than any player for Wake Forest, which has no players in their fourth year contributing to the program.
“Quinn as a starter and being the only senior, he’s done a really good job showing these young guys how it should be,” Scheyer said.
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