Duke Basketball: Takeaways from dominant 30-point home win over Miami

Matthew Hurt’s huge game

In easily his best game of the 2019-20 season, Matthew Hurt dominated Miami, finishing with 22 points and three blocks in 24 minutes. Hurt did the majority of his damage from deep, turning in an impressive 4-for-7 shooting effort from 3-point range. Hurt has been an efficient shooter all season long but on Tuesday he showed off some of the tricks in the bag that we haven’t seen a ton, including some impressive ballhandling and finishing in the open court, and a step-back 3-point shot.

15 of Hurt’s 22 points came in the first half and he scored Duke’s first six points of the game. Hurt’s corner 3-point make to open the game’s scoring was a sign of things to come as he would lead the Blue Devils to a 63.8% true shooting percentage in Tuesday’s win. He knocked down four of Duke’s 11 makes from 3-point range and shot 72.7% from the field.

Hurt’s contributions on offense overshadowed his defense. He competed with the Miami bigs down low and though he isn’t the strongest player, he has more than enough size to bother any Hurricanes driving to the rim. Hurt collected six rebounds and three blocks in 24 minutes of action. At this point in his career, Hurt can still get played off the floor in certain matchups. But overall, the 6-foot-9 freshman is too talented and too perfect of a fit (next to Vernon Carey Jr.) to have off the floor long.

After only playing 15 minutes and scoring two points in a loss to Clemson, Hurt is now up to 19 points per game over his last two contests. Duke is a tough out this year because of a great defense and some physical scoring presences on the inside. But when Hurt’s shot is falling like the way it was on Tuesday, Duke’s inside-out attack quickly becomes an unstoppable pick-your-poison situation for opponents.