CAMERON NORTH: No. 3 Duke men's basketball dominates Illinois 110-67 for 8th straight win in Madison Square Garden
It was 40 seconds into the second half when Cooper Flagg ran down the Knicks’ home court off a Sion James steal and slammed a dunk with ease. The Fighting Illini had no answer, so Duke answered for them with a Kon Knueppel triple that sent the royal blue contingent of “Cameron North” over the edge.
In the heart of Manhattan on a Big Apple Saturday night, the third-ranked Blue Devils took ownership of Madison Square Garden, giving Illinois a 110-67 beating and its largest defeat in program history. In the first half alone, Duke scored 54 points — the best mark of its season so far. The triple-digit final score came as the fruits of a shared effort between teammates, seven of whom nabbed a double-digit day.
"These guys ... they're playing for themselves, playing for Duke, of course, but most importantly, they're playing for each other," head coach Jon Scheyer said after the game. "I think that's what you need to have for a great team."
A young man named Archie emceed the whole affair in a black hoodie emblazoned with a picture of stand-up comedian Richard Pryor.
The sold-out, 19,500-person crowd fit right in with the stadium, which glows blue and orange for the New York Knicks. But Saturday night, the blue glowed brighter. The stands performed Duke’s traditional graduate student distraction tactic and the court echoed with an “Our house” chant in the final minute. The Blue Devils began this game with seven straight wins in the Garden. They ended it with eight.
"We saw so much blue in the crowd," Flagg said.
Seven-foot-1 Tomislav Ivišić won the opening tip against Khaman Maluach. Illinois, however, couldn’t capitalize on its first possession and missed back-to-back 3-point attempts before Flagg caught a defensive rebound and handed things over to Duke. The Blue Devils played fiercely as soon as they caught the ball: James lit up the scoreboard with a triple from left of the basket, and when Illinois took the ball back down the court, Tyrese Proctor had a board within seconds. He chucked it to Knueppel, who converted to a layup.
James missed his next attempt from the arc, but had a chance for redemption when a travel by Fighting Illini Ben Humrichous gave Duke back the ball. Flagg found his open teammate and let James put up another to cement a lead that would only grow from there.
"Man, he's so unselfish," Scheyer said of James. "Plays at a great speed ... he makes everybody better, and that's the biggest thing."
The problem for Illinois was the 3-point shot. In the first half, the Blue Devils shot 5-for-10 from deep. But the Fighting Illini missed their first, and their second and then their 10th attempt from the arc. They did not stop trying. By the time they missed their 15th triple — still in the first period — the stadium was half quiet.
Isaiah Evans was one of four Blue Devils launching shots from near and far. The freshman thrives from deep; he began his Duke career with a 3-point performance that immediately became his brand. After drawing a foul on a missed fast-break dunk, the rookie went back to what he knows. He knocked down two triples within 40 seconds of one another, the first one swishing right through and the second one teetering on the edge of the rim before falling into the net, giving Duke a 24-14 lead. Evans finished the game with a team-high 17 points.
With eight minutes to play in the first half, Proctor swished his first three. Duke had a 13-point lead, but Proctor didn’t settle down; as soon as Illinois had the ball back on the Blue Devils’ side of the court, the Australian guard stole it back. He passed it to Knueppel, who drove all the way for a layup, but missed. It was once again Proctor who caught the rebound and then assisted a James layup to trigger another timeout from Brad Underwood as the Blue Devils' lead grew to 35-20. Archie stepped back onto the court, microphone in hand.
"We stunk," Underwood said. "We didn't play very well tonight."
Only in the last minutes of the first half did Illinois show shades of prowess. Kylan Boswell caught a pass from Knueppel and, on the ensuing possession, put up a clean short-range jumper. After Scheyer’s use-it-or-lose-it timeout, Illinois seemed to have a renaissance; Boswell stole the ball from Flagg, passing it to Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn for a layup. As the buzzer sounded out, it looked like Boswell might break the 3-point curse with an audacious half-court heave. Alas, nobody in the Illinois locker room at halftime had a triple to his name.
It happened, though. With 16:01 on the clock in the second period, Ivišić hit a triple. Orange jerseys jumped out of their seats in celebration and the Garden hit one of its loudest moments.
But at 63-42, this was still Duke’s game. The Blue Devils, aptly dressed in home-team white, grew their monster lead from nearly 20 points to over 30 by the time Archie hosted the $25,000 shot at the under-12 media timeout.
"This whole year, it's been a learning experience," Flagg said. "We take it step by step, game by game, day by day, just trying to get better with every experience that we've gone through."
Duke’s grit in the face of this blowout mimicked that of a team with something to prove. They were playing, perhaps, with as much synergy as this group ever has, passing energy as well as the basketball all around the court. When Malauch dunked, he and five other teammates had already put up double digits. James, Proctor, Flagg, Knueppel, Evans — they all performed remarkably Saturday night. Caleb Foster stole 12 points in just a few minutes of game time at the end of the contest. Stanley Borden had a block and a rebound; Spencer Hubbard had a three. Even with Flagg’s heroics, this team has rarely been a one-man band. In the Garden, it had more harmony than ever.
Hence the crowd’s standing ovations as Duke’s best performers bowed out of the show.
"The consistency of everybody stepping up — I could talk about each one of these guys that played tonight," Scheyer said.
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The Blue Devils will return to ACC play with a trip down the East Coast to take on Miami Tuesday night.
| Sports Managing Editor
Sophie Levenson is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.
