Duke Basketball: 3 takeaways from the Blue Devils’ 88-81 win over Michigan State

Michigan State needs more scoring from their backcourt

Aside from Allen, the Duke roster struggled in this game. Yet, it was good enough to be better than Michigan State, whose multiple mini-droughts prevented them from ever getting a good foothold in this game.

Although the interior players of Michigan State were mostly solid, it was their lack of a scoring presence on the perimeter that hurt them in this game.

Cassius Winston did distribute the ball well with 11 assists, but he, along with Joshua Langford, combined to shoot 4-for-14 (1-for-7 from deep) for the game from the field. Outside of an impressive and-1, Matt McQuaid was a non-factor, missing all three deep balls in the game.

The team in total went 9-for-25 from deep for 36%. This might not look bad, but eight of the nine makes were by members of the frontcourt. The backcourt is going to need to start shooting the ball better if the Spartans are going to be a championship contender.

Duke knew that Michigan State didn’t want to shoot it and packed the zone all night. There were some good back-alley plays into the paint, but way too Michigan State turnovers gave Duke multiple easy buckets.