After three uninspiring performances in a row culminated with a blowout loss to Virginia Tech last Saturday, Duke had one last chance to send its head coach off in style before Mike Krzyzewski undergoes back surgery Friday.
The Blue Devils made the most of their opportunity with their most lopsided win of the season.
Duke scored a season-high 61 points in the first half on its way to a dominant 110-57 victory against Georgia Tech at Cameron Indoor Stadium Wednesday, shooting a sizzling 55.7 percent from the field and making a season-high 16 3-pointers.
Grayson Allen returned from his indefinite suspension after just one game and scored 15 points to go along with seven assists, and freshman Jayson Tatum led seven Blue Devils in double figures with 19 points.
“The group we had is more like what we wanted to do from October, but we’re doing it now in January,” Krzyzewski said. “It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to postpone my surgery for a few days, just to move to this point where we could get this moving the right way…. It was the end of us patch-working our team.”
Sophomore Luke Kennard scored all 16 of his points in the first half and got some much-needed rest with the game's outcome decided early on. Wednesday's game was the first time since the team's season opener that Kennard played fewer than 30 minutes.
Allen started the game and coexisted with Kennard better than he has all season, helping to facilitate a Duke offense that racked up a season-high 24 assists, and the Blue Devils' impressive ball movement set the tone for its first 100-point game of the year and its first in ACC play since 2009.
“We’ve emphasized Grayson pushing the ball for us offensively and he did a great job of that tonight. We were really unselfish all game and that’s what we need to do. It was our most unselfish game,” Kennard said. “It’s just really fun to play like that and that’s what happens—we get big wins.”
Duke (13-2, 1-1 in the ACC) squashed any momentum the Yellow Jackets had from an upset win against then-No. 9 North Carolina last Saturday early on, with Allen dishing to Kennard for two open triples to put the Blue Devils in front 13-6.
The 3-point barrage never stopped.
After Georgia Tech (9-5, 1-1) trimmed the lead to 15-11, Duke knocked down triples on four straight possessions to spark a 14-0 run and break the game open. Allen, Kennard, Frank Jackson and Matt Jones each drilled multiple 3-pointers in the first half, and the Blue Devils took a 31-point lead into the locker room.
Jackson reached double figures in scoring for the first time since November with 15 points off the bench on 5-of-9 shooting, including four triples.
“We’ve given them a chance to get to know each other and roles that would be familiar for them,” Krzyzewski said. “Sometimes you’re asking these guys to do a little bit more than they can do, and then they forget what they can do. They try to do a little bit more instead of being themselves.”
Perhaps the most encouraging sign for Duke's future this year, though, came less than a minute into the second half, when Tatum threw a lob to classmate Harry Giles for a powerful two-handed alley-oop. Less than two minutes later, Giles—who started for the first time of his career—took a pass from Allen on the baseline and elevated for another dunk.
“We wanted to try to push the process a little bit by starting him,” Krzyzewski said. “He’s made really positive steps forward…. He’s still a ways away from being who he will be, but hopefully that will happen while he’s at Duke. That’s what we’re looking for.”
Giles scored 10 points in his fourth game of the year after a torn ACL sidelined him for more than a year. The Winston-Salem, N.C., native added 12 rebounds for his first career double-double and finally displayed the explosiveness and athleticism that made him the nation's top recruit.
“It was great,” Tatum said. “Harry hasn’t played for a long time, so for him to get in there and get a double-double and get some dunks and get the crowd excited helped us.”
Tatum also came alive in the second half, scoring 15 of his 19 points after the break as the Blue Devil freshmen combined for a season-high 51 points.
Duke will return to the floor Saturday afternoon at home against Boston College with Jeff Capel roaming the sidelines as the Blue Devils' temporary head coach while Krzyzewski recovers from surgery.
“We know that Coach Capel and the rest of the staff know the ins and outs of Duke basketball,” Allen said. “Coach Capel is a great coach, so we’re going to listen to him and be all ears. We know we’re going to be just as good moving forward.”
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