Duke Basketball: 3 keys to beat Michigan State in 2020 Champions Classic

1. Limit the Turnovers

In Duke’s first game of the season on Saturday, the Blue Devils committed an astounding 22 turnovers. Had they not been playing a team like Coppin State, we might be talking about an 0-1 Duke team, but luckily for Duke, it was Coppin State and they escaped with a 10-point win.

Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, Michigan State is a little better than Coppin State and I can almost guarantee you that if they commit 22 turnovers on Tuesday night, the result will not be the same as it was on Saturday.

Michigan State’s two opponents this season have combined for only 19 turnovers while Michigan State has recorded only 11 steals over the course of those two games. This means that Michigan State doesn’t force a whole lot of turnovers, which is a great sign for Duke.

Unfortunately for Duke, of their 22 turnovers on Saturday, only 12 of them came off of steals from Coppin State. What this means is that Duke had 10 unaccounted for turnovers, which simply put, is horrendous.

Duke simply threw the ball out of bounds 10 times, without Coppin State registering a steal on the play. If Duke can limit this number to less than five while Michigan State records less than five steals on top of it, Duke should be in a good position to win this game.

Of Michigan State’s 11 steals over the course of their two games, forward Aaron Henry has accounted for three of them, while Gabe Brown has accounted for five (all five coming in their game against Notre Dame.)

So what does this mean? Both Henry, and Brown are forwards, which is troublesome considering that of Duke’s 22 turnovers on Saturday, forward Jalen Johnson accounted for seven of them. This means Duke has to be careful around Henry and Brown because if they’re not, they might just up their steal numbers on Tuesday.

Nonetheless, Duke needs to be careful and get their turnover numbers down on Tuesday, or it might be a really long night in Durham.