Duke Basketball: 5 Questions for the Blue Devils against Pittsburgh

Can Duke limit turnovers?

After focusing on limiting turnovers over their last few games, Duke has quietly worked their way back up from the mid-100s in turnovers per game rankings and currently sit at No. 42 in college basketball.

You might think that this is a bad place to be, seeing as Duke has been consistently one of the top teams in the country, but, when you combine their youth with a game plan that includes throwing it into the paint to the best big man in college basketball, turnovers are going to happen.

Unfortunately, the Blue Devils are also one of the worst teams in the country when it comes to forcing turnovers, ranked No. 280 overall. This is a dangerous combination but can also be written off as there are many games in which Duke was comfortably in the lead and did not need to focus on creating turnovers.

The better news is that signs were that Duke was finally getting over the tendency to throw the ball away – at least until their loss to the NC State Wolf Pack, where the Blue Devils finished with 16 turnovers.

This is an unacceptable number of turnovers against a team that is currently ranked No. 42 in terms of turnovers forced per game (weird that they are both ranked No. 42 in each respective category), and Duke has to be better at taking care of the ball.

Pittsburgh, fortunately, is ranked No. 323 in college basketball when it comes to forcing turnovers, so Duke could get right back on track Wednesday night.