In what head coach Mike Krzyzewski called the biggest game of the season, it was the smallest player on the roster who rose to the occasion, leading No. 5 Duke to a 79-65 win against Pittsburgh at Cameron Indoor Stadium Monday night.
"Tyus, really, these last two games, he's really led our team," Krzyzewski said. "He's taken on a more commanding personality."
Yes, it was point guard Tyus Jones who made things happen for the Blue Devils. The Midseason Wooden Award Finalist—who was shooting a paltry 25.0 percent for the month of January entering Monday's game—changed the offensive dynamic with his prolific scoring. Jones finished the night matching his career high with 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting, including 4-of-6 from beyond the arc.
With Jones doing the swishing, Jahlil Okafor was doing the dishing, handing out a team-high five assists. And with Okafor passing, it was guard Quinn Cook who was crashing the boards, hauling in a career-high 10 rebounds for his first double-double of the season.
It isn't really a surprise that Jones would choose a game like this to flip Duke's play on its head. After all, it was nationally televised. Whether it's a coincidence or not, the Tyus Jones who wows on ESPN is not the same Tyus Jones who finds himself stuck in the shadows without a big audience watching.
That's not just the eye-test talking. The numbers back up Jones' wizardry in the spotlight. In eight nationally televised games, Jones is averaging 14.6 points per game. If you exclude the N.C. State and Miami games, in which the entire roster slumped, Jones averaged 17.8 points in nationally televised games. In the 10 other games? Just 6.5 points.
This stark difference also isn't due to just volume shooting from Jones. His field goal percentage on national TV is 49.2 percent. When the cameras are off, he's shooting 34.0 percent. The splits are just as drastic from beyond the arc and the charity stripe, where he goes from 41.4 percent to 30.4 percent and from 91.8 percent to 78.8 percent, respectively.
Even though the numbers suggest that there might be a difference in preparation or mindset for these big-time games, it appears the Apple Valley, Minn., native doesn't consciously change his routine.
"He's just cool under pressure," said Okafor, a long-time friend of Jones and former teammate with USA Basketball. "I know that he didn't shoot as well as he wanted to these last couple of games [before Pittsburgh], so he's just been in the gym, taking shots and trying to refocus himself."
Cool, calm and collected is what the Blue Devils needed from Jones to quell the Panther comeback bid on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. After all, it was Jones who was finally able to arouse the slumbering Duke offense. The Blue Devils went without a field goal for a full seven minutes and 10 seconds—a span during which Pittsburgh cut its deficit from 20 to 12—until, with the shot clock winding down, Jones knocked down a deep, contested 3-pointer to bring Club Cameron back to life.
It seems impossible for Jones to keep playing to this significant of a split for the rest of the season—but Duke fans should be hoping such is the case. Thanks to a loaded ACC, Jones' next game not covered by ESPN, ESPN2, CBS or FOX isn't until March 4, when Wake Forest pays a visit to Cameron Indoor Stadium.
If Jones can continue the trend he's followed this season, then he may end up unseating Okafor as the nation's top freshman. He's already positioned himself to dethrone his old friend as ACC Freshman of the Week, a feat accomplished just once this season—by Jones himself, after he set his career-high of 22 points for the first time against Wisconsin on December 3.
Regardless of what the rest of the season has in store for the Blue Devils, there should be one thing on the mind of every Duke fan after seeing Jones' stat splits: Please don't put our NCAA Tournament games on TruTV.
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