Duke starts in familiar fashion
Nov 11, 2008
We’ve seen this game 100 times before. Or maybe it’s 200 times. Or maybe it just seems like 200 times.
Overtly grateful for the opportunity, an overmatched nonconference opponent ventures to Cameron Indoor Stadium early in the men’s basketball season, plays its heart out, and suffers a lopsided defeat. Duke’s overplaying defense prevents the visitor from running its accustomed offense, forcing the less-gifted opponent to try to score one-on-one. The outcome is never in doubt. The margin at halftime is huge. Play is determined but uneven. The Blue Devil defense is ahead of the offense. The game stats present interesting insights into Duke’s strengths and weaknesses.
So it was on the opening night of the 2008-09 men's season as Duke faced Presbyterian, in its second year participating at the Division I level. Other than the new scoreboard merging the video era with circa-1940 surroundings, there was a timeless quality to the evening’s events as the eighth-ranked Blue Devils beat the Blue Hose, 80-49.
The victory was the 804th of Mike Krzyzewski’s career, tying him with Eddie Sutton for fifth-best among major college coaches. Krzyzewski is now 98 wins from matching his inactive mentor, Bob Knight, for the all-time lead. He is 75 victories removed from second place, occupied by some retired guy from Chapel Hill named Dean Smith.
Presbyterian, the latest notch in Coach K’s belt, has several historical links to the ACC, although it had not previously faced Duke in basketball. (The schools played to a tie in football in 1922.)
Norman Sloan, who directed N.C. State from 1967 through 1980, got his head coaching start in basketball at the South Carolina school in 1952. The Hose also served from 1930 through 1957 as opening-day football fodder for Clemson, including serving as the sacrificial lamb in the first game ever played at Memorial Stadium. According to legend it was Lonnie McMillan, a football coach at Presbyterian in the 1940s, who nicknamed the Tigers’ home “Death Valley.”
Last season Presbyterian built its athletic bank account and basketball profile by playing on the road in 25 of 30 contests. The Hose won the five games they played at home in Clinton, and lost the 25 played on hostile courts, including at Clemson, Wake Forest, N.C. State and Georgia Tech. This season coach Gregg Nibert’s charges play 10 games at home, but eight of their first nine contests are on the road.
The first stop was Durham and the 2K Sports Classic, a tournament benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer. The trip to Cameron was three years in the making, according to Nibert. “Some people thought it was crazy to even want to play Duke,” the coach said. “It’s a dream for our program, being NAIA and Division II, to play this most prestigious university, basketball program, and coach Krzyzewski and what all he’s done for college basketball…They’re awesome. He’s awesome. Their players are awesome. We couldn’t be more thankful to have this opportunity.”
You get the idea.
Krzyzewski was pleased too, so at ease he made jokes about a recent newspaper headline that characterized – he said mischaracterized -- him as “steamed” following an exhibition game. He teased that his temper might blow at any moment, repeatedly evoking laughter from the assembled media.
There was also praise for Presybterian’s pluck, and for his own team’s “excellent defense.” The game looked ragged in part because it was a defensive struggle, the coach suggested. “We played really hard, or else you wouldn’t force 28 turnovers. It didn’t translate to being fluid on the offensive end.”
Still, the Blue Devils made 47.6 percent of their shots, virtually identical to last season’s accuracy in non-ACC competition. A stronger Kyle Singler, letting his blond hair grow out, led both teams with 19 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks. Off guard Jon Scheyer and point guard Nolan Smith each had a dozen points. Smith demonstrated why former starter Greg Paulus now comes off the bench; his ballhawking presence created three turnovers and helped set the defensive tone.
Yet even the best teams are rarely at peak efficiency, or want to be, this early in the season, and Duke is far from a finished product. The Devils committed 21 turnovers, a troubling total that surpassed their ballhandling mistakes in any victory last season. (Twice the Devils had 22 turnovers in 2008 road losses, at Wake Forest and Miami.)
Presbyterian and Duke combined for more turnovers (49) than field goals (46). “We just didn’t make the extra pass,” Krzyzewski said. “I’m a big basketball gods guy. I think sometimes you get punished. You miss layups when you don’t see the open guy.”
The fouls called on the two teams equaled the 46 baskets scored in the game. Duke center Brian Zoubek was disqualified in seven minutes. That led Kzyzewski to wonder aloud whether the seven-footer “looks like a guy that fouls,” a malady players usually outgrow. A recent ACC example was Wake Forest forward Darius Songaila, now playing in the NBA.
Clearly, the Blue Devils are not settled at the low post, a weak area last season and a major question entering this one. Freshman Miles Plumlee started but was virtually invisible against Presbyterian. Zoubek was no factor. The best of the post passel was Lance Thomas, with 12 points and 5 rebounds in 18 minutes. His scoring exceeded his output in any game last season, giving the 6-8 junior a boost in competition for the starter’s role inside.
Freshman Olek Czyz also played. His participation lessened the chance the raw but gifted Nevada product would be redshirted, as had been rumored. When the 6-7 forward scored, the Duke fans chanted, “You got Czyzed on!” That certainly sounded unpleasant.
