NEW YORK—Things did not look good for the No. 5 Blue Devils heading into the under-12 media timeout.
Rasheed Sulaimon had just been whistled for his fourth foul, exiled to the bench to join classmate Amile Jefferson—saddled with three personals of his own—and freshman Justise Winslow, a non-factor all afternoon as the Houston native deals with various ailments.
Trailing 57-47 after a pair of free throws immediately following the timeout, Duke was going to have to mount a furious rally with one of its more unique lineups of the season. Regulars Jahlil Okafor, Quinn Cook and Tyus Jones were joined by Marshall Plumlee—filling in for Jefferson—and Matt Jones, who spelled Sulaimon.
The unconventional lineup answered the bell, delivering the crucial 21-4 run trailing 61-51 that swung the game back in the Blue Devils’ favor and captured head coach Mike Krzyzewski’s 1,000th career victory.
“The last 10 minutes I thought Plumlee and [Matt] Jones gave us so many plays,” Krzyzewski said. “Plumlee had defensive rebounding and one big offensive rebound to keep an exchange going. Matt just played with amazing heart and seemed to bring even more heart out of Jah and Quinn and Tyus. We played great the last 10 minutes.”
Although several players said they drew energy from Krzyzewski’s encouragement on the sidelines down the stretch, the head coach attributed it to his two reserves.
“If they fed off of me we would’ve turned it around in the middle of the first half,” Krzyzewski said. “At halftime I sent a text out to destroy all the books I’ve written on leadership, because they weren’t working. Those two kids really gave us an amazing spark.”
Seeing his first extended minutes of the year playing alongside Okafor, Plumlee filled in admirably for Jefferson. The Warsaw, Ind., native capped an exciting week with two points and five rebounds in 12 minutes, including an offensive board that led to three Tyus Jones free throws that extended Duke's lead to six.
“To me it was a bit of a whirlwind,” Plumlee said. “When you start to build that momentum and make tough play after tough play, you’re carrying that emotion into the next play and the next play, and it all just kind of blurs together and you’re really all moving as a team. So I didn’t really notice how long I was on the floor.”
Despite the inexperience of the unit, Krzyzewski gave Plumlee a chance in crunch time, and the redshirt junior responded.
“We haven’t used Marshall and Jah together, and we especially haven’t used them with [an athlete like Red Storm forward Sir’Dominic] Pointer being the four, and I just said ‘Let’s put him in,’" Krzyzewski said. "And then we made a mistake right away and I said ‘We’re going to lose by 30’ and then—boom. It was great.”
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