Duke Basketball: Takeaways from Blue Devils 900th win at Cameroon Indoor
2. Best defense since…
There have been many people who have stated that this year’s Duke team has a “2010-feel” to it. That, of course, is referring to the 2010 Duke National Championship squad featuring Jahlil Okafor, Tyus Jones, and Justice Winslow. That team allowed 61.0 points per game. This year’s Duke squad? They allow 62.3 points per game, the best defensive output of Duke basketball since…you guessed it! The 2009-10 National Championship season.
Duke has held seven consecutive opponents under 65 points, its second-longest such streak in Coach K's tenure.
— Stephen Wiseman (@stevewisemanNC) January 12, 2020
There are multiple reasons Duke’s defense has been so good this season. For one, Coach K is using a deep rotation and mixing in different bodies on the wing in the absence of freshman Wendell Moore. Duke has great defensive personnel and Coach K presses the right buttons to get big-time efforts on a nightly basis. Duke racked up 11 steals against the Wake Forest on Saturday and often generated easy offense off of those turnovers.
Freshman Cassius Stanley—already a fan favorite for his fantastic forays to the rim—is not afraid to “dig” down from the weak side and strip unsuspecting ballhandlers who drive into Duke’s thicket of the long-limbed defenders. And once Stanley gets a steal… opponents know what comes next.
https://twitter.com/theACCDN/status/1216196162866335744
On top of the 11 swipes, Duke collected eight blocks, with an impressive 62.5% of their swats coming from the bench unit. Duke basketball is truly locked in on the defensive side of the ball and this is something that we haven’t been to say about the Blue Devils as a collective unit in quite some time.