After each Duke men's basketball game this season, check back here for the Player of the Game and more. No. 8 Duke played down to the final seconds before suffering a brutal loss to a punchy Wake Forest group, and the Blue Zone is here to review the action:
One player: Hunter Sallis
It was another huge night for the junior guard, who put on a show for a roaring home crowd in Winston-Salem. Gonzaga transfer Hunter Sallis had 29 points, six rebounds and an assist while playing 39 minutes Saturday afternoon. Notably, it was an incredibly efficient night for him as well. He shot a stunning 11-for-13 from the field and a remarkable 5-for-6 from behind the arc.
Watching the game, it felt like he was everywhere at once. Sallis’s ability to score almost at will was key to the Demon Deacons’ win, as he found ways to hit tough shots and bail his team out from deep when the shot clock was winding down. His defense was solid too, as he recorded a steal and played hounded Duke’s guards on and off the ball. Wake Forest’s offense as a unit had a great game, but it was Sallis who really stood out as a scorer and shot-creator.
One word: Mistakes
For the Blue Devils, it was obviously a less-than-ideal game. While there were a number of things that went sub-optimally for the visiting team, nothing was more immediately obvious than the number of mistakes that were made. Miscommunications, bad passes and sloppy play plagued Duke throughout the game. In the end, the Blue Devils recorded 11 turnovers compared to just six by the hosts, a difference that would ultimately come to decide the result.
The pivotal miscue came in the final seconds of the game due to a miscommunication between sophomore center Kyle Filipowski and sophomore point guard Tyrese Proctor. Proctor bounced the ball off an unprepared Filipowski’s hand before it went flying out of bounds to eliminate the visiting team’s final real opportunity to tie or win the game. It was emblematic of how the whole contest went. Duke seemed slightly thrown off by the hostile, sold-out crowd. Going forward, head coach Jon Scheyer’s team will be looking to perform better under pressure than it did Saturday.
One stat: 20 personal fouls
Yet another challenge Scheyer’s squad faced against Wake Forest was that of the whistle, which plagued the Blue Devils throughout the game. The visitors racked up 20 combined personal fouls over the course of the game, limiting the minutes some key pieces were able to play due to fear of fouling out. Notably, it was a rough one for graduate center Ryan Young, who fouled out in just 12 minutes of time on the floor. Young, often an important player off the bench for Scheyer, recorded just three points and 0 field goals. Similarly, both Filipowski and Proctor had picked up four fouls by the end of the game. Senior guard Jeremy Roach had three, as did sophomore forward Mark Mitchell. It forced the defense to be a little more conservative, and also gave the Demon Deacons some key easy points from the charity stripe down the stretch. Certainly not an ideal performance by any means from the Blue Devils.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.