WIN-STON-SALEM: No. 2 Duke men's basketball emerges victorious in defensive showdown against Wake Forest
It is hard to out-tough the Blue Devils.
In an ultra-physical affair on the road, Duke battled adversity in more ways than one in a 63-56 win against Wake Forest. Freshmen Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel combined for 41 total points, but the Demon Deacons stifled the Blue Devils’ offense completely to the tune of a 36.8% shooting percentage and 16 turnovers. Still, Duke responded with a 21-9 run to end the game and remain perfect in the ACC.
"That was a big time college basketball game, and I couldn't be more proud of our team," head coach Jon Scheyer said. "We didn't score a lot, but it's not just us. You have to give Wake Forest credit. They're one of the best defensive teams in the country."
When the game enters crunch time, teams often turn to their veterans.
For Wake Forest, senior Cameron Hildreth, who played just 19 minutes because of foul trouble, nailed a pair of crucial free throws to bring his team back within four with 2:49 to play. Duke found its response in junior Tyrese Proctor, who nearly fell down as the shot clock bled under five seconds before collecting himself for a 3-pointer to make it 56-49.
A pair of fouls from freshman Patrick Ngongba II let the Demon Deacons trim the lead back to four and forced the Blue Devils to come up with another big bucket. Again, Duke turned to experience. As the clock ticked under 50 seconds, graduate student Mason Gillis calmly knocked down a corner triple off a clean feed from Flagg — his third of the game.
"When they were going on that run, it was just really loud in there. So just being able to have such tight huddles and have leadership from guys on the court," Flagg said. "Tyrese and Mason are both huge and vocal out there, and they have such good things to say from their experiences that they've been through before."
From there, it was a matter of making free throws, which Flagg and Knueppel did well enough to secure the victory.
The Blue Devils scored just four points in the first 12 minutes of the second half, while Wake Forest finally found ways to get things rolling. It did not help that the Demon Deacons entered the bonus with 10:56 left, but a 1-for-19 rate from the field is never a winning recipe. The home team took a 45-39 lead with 9:55 remaining as Scheyer was forced to call a timeout.
The root of Duke’s offensive struggles was Wake Forest’s relentless ball pressure. Unable to run its sets, the team relied on iso-ball and more often than not, settled for subpar shots. Eleven of the Blue Devils’ first 17 attempts were from behind the arc, which prevented them from drawing fouls at the same rate as Wake Forest.
Flagg finally took the lid off the rim with a mid-range jumper, Knueppel worked inside the next time down and, after Gillis lined up a triple to bring Duke back within one, Flagg spun for a layup to put the visitors back ahead.
On the other end, Scheyer opted for a zone defense to avoid more extraneous fouls. The result was a flurry of missed shots from the Demon Deacons, who finished the game shooting just 37.3%. Scheyer was comfortable giving 3-point shots to a Wake Forest team that has struggled from deep all season, and the bet paid off as it helped support a 12-2 Blue Devil run.
"We've played [zone] one possession all year," Scheyer said. "We've kept it in our back pocket, just in case. It's good to have a curveball."
After a few minutes of sluggish possessions to start the second half, Hunter Sallis sparked Wake Forest’s first true run of the game. The senior nailed a pair of contested jumpers, and as Duke was in the midst of a 0-for-5 stretch from the field, the Demon Deacons closed the gap to 35-29. Two more Wake Forest fouls gave the Blue Devils a chance to see the ball go in from the free-throw line, but Proctor’s third missed layup of the game sent Duke into the first media timeout still without a made field goal.
The Demon Deacons would not trail for much longer, as Tre’Von Spillers made a three, Ngongba missed a layup and Spillers caught a lob. Flagg stopped the bleeding for a moment with a 3-pointer, but a 39-39 tie game felt more like a 10-point Wake Forest lead with 11:33 to play.
It did not take long for things to get chippy, as the raucous crowd helped breathe life into the already heated in-state rivalry. After Sallis was called for a travel that negated a made 3-pointer, Duke hauled in three consecutive offensive rebounds, the last of which — hauled in by Maluach — spurred a jump-ball that only further raised the decibel level.
The early noise got into the heads of the young Blue Devils, who totaled five turnovers in the first four minutes. Despite knocking down an early triple, Knueppel had a pair of turnovers in the first few minutes, and Flagg coughed up the ball three times before the first media timeout. Both rookies settled in as the half wore on, however, and Knueppel and Flagg combined for 21 of Duke’s 35 first-half points.
The Demon Deacons were similarly nervous to start, and after the first eight minutes of play, the two sides had totaled just 11 points. They finally got a spark from Ty-Laur Johnson, who got fouled on a floater and still made the shot. Two straight turnovers from Flagg — to bring his first-half total to five — set the table for another and-one that brought the crowd to its feet.
The two sides traded blows through the rest of a bumpy 20 minutes, and the 20 total fouls in the first half almost surpassed the 21 made field goals. Duke still went into halftime with a 13-point cushion, in large part thanks to the Demon Deacons’ 6-for-12 mark from the charity stripe 0-for-9 start from 3-point range.
The Blue Devils’ next in-state opponent will be N.C. State Monday in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.
| Sports Managing Editor
Dom Fenoglio is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.
