After a surprisingly comfortable win against a top-10 foe, the Blue Devils must get right back on the court.
No. 4 Duke will take on Florida State Monday at 7 p.m. at the Donald L. Tucker Center in Tallahassee, Fla. After a nail-biting win against a struggling Georgia Tech team Wednesday and an offensive and defensive clinic Saturday against Notre Dame, the Blue Devils are hoping their trip down south brings more of the latter.
Saturday's 90-60 rout of the then-No. 10 Fighting Irish was a true team effort. Four players reached double-figures—including double-doubles from freshmen Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow—and Duke's high-pressure man-to-man defense returned with a vengeance, holding Fighting Irish star Jerian Grant without a field goal in the first half and putting the clamps on a potent offense.
After getting beaten on the ball-screen in their mid-January losses, the Blue Devils seem to have found the antidote.
"You need to have energy and talk and you're able to communicate what's going on," Duke assistant coach Jon Scheyer said. "Our desire to stop somebody and to know what it takes has grown, and so you've seen last game, if Jahlil and Quinn [Cook] were involved in a ball screen, you saw the other three guys on the court coming over to help and do what they're supposed to do. It's not just two guys playing the ball screen. We're all five guys on it."
The defensive energy fueled Duke's 43-7 run that blew the contest wide open in the first half. On the other end, everyone seemed to be hitting their shots, and the departure of Okafor to the bench with two fouls didn't stop the Blue Devils (20-3, 7-3 in the ACC) from running away with the game.
The Seminoles (13-11, 5-6) will send a rotating trio of length at Okafor Monday night. Florida State boasts three players standing 7-feet or taller—Boris Bojanovsky, Michael Ojo and Kiel Turpin—who will try to contain the Preseason AP Player of the Year.
That task has been easier said than done this season, as Okafor has reached double-figures in all 23 of Duke's contests, including a 20-point, 10-rebound effort in Saturday's blowout of the Fighting Irish.
Ojo has made the majority of the starts among the Seminole centers, but plays just 8.7 minutes per game. Collectively, the unit averages just 13.1 points and 8.0 rebounds per contest, but provide imposing length on the defensive end.
"They cause a lot of problems with their defensive length. We can't be knocked back by how big they are and how athletic they are," Scheyer said. "They'll always have a 7-footer in the game, no matter who it is. That's something Jahlil will have to be ready for and our whole team [as well]. There's nothing easy at the basket and you've got to be prepared for their size."
With head coach Leonard Hamilton's centers focused on protecting the basket, the scoring responsibilities fall on a trio of Seminole guards. After leading scorer Aaron Thomas was ruled ineligible in December, Xavier Rathan-Mayes, Devon Bookert and Montay Brandon have shouldered the load, each averaging double-figures.
All three guards start for Florida State, scoring in a variety of ways. Rathan-Mayes functions as the team's point guard, able to both look for his own shot and distribute to teammates. Bookert does most of his damage from beyond the arc, hitting 41.2 percent of his looks from downtown. At 6-foot-8, Brandon plays a role similar to that of Winslow—a swingman able to drive the lane and finish with his athleticism.
"Rathan-Mayes is a really good guard, he creates a lot of offense for them," Scheyer said. "They have two veteran guys on the win in Bookert—who's a really good shooter, you can't leave him open—and then Brandon, who's very athletic, strong, very good driver who we need to try to keep out of our paint."
With Brandon crashing the boards hard from the wing, rebounding is a key concern for Duke. That was also the case last year at Cameron Indoor Stadium, when the undersized Blue Devils demolished the Seminoles 47-24 on the glass, scoring 29 second-chance points en route to a 78-56 victory. That game was arguably Marshall Plumlee's best as a Blue Devil, posting seven points and seven rebounds in 12 minutes.
The lessons Duke learned about containing the Notre Dame ball screen action will come in useful again Monday should the Seminoles look to pair Brandon or Rathan-Mayes with a center to attack the rim. The Blue Devils held the nation's most efficient offense to 39.7 percent shooting Saturday and will attempt to duplicate the feat Monday on the road.
They'll look to do so in blue throwback uniforms, a new look for the team.
"I think they're really cool," Scheyer said of the uniforms. "Frankly, part of me thought they were awesome and then part of me was a little jealous that I never got to wear these jerseys."
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