Duke Basketball: Takeaways from Blue Devils home loss to Arizona Wildcats
By John Makuch
2. Center depth behind Filipowski is an issue
This game had the makings of one where the Arizona Wildcats were going to just pull away in the second half, with Duke struggling and having to rally twice from eight-point Arizona leads.
Kyle Filipowski, the seven-foot returnee, had a strong 25-point, eight-rebound performance for the Blue Devils and he was the one that kept them in this game. Duke as a whole was not strong on the offensive end and did not flow as well as they may have hoped, but Filipowski was there for key buckets down the stretch.
He would end up playing 31 minutes in this game, with the other minutes being taken up by Ryan Young, the 6’10 senior who this team needed to step up. For Arizona, Oumar Ballo and Keshad Johnson had great games inside, and a lot of that came about when Young was on the floor. Defensively, he just could not hang with the size and strength Arizona brought to the table.
Young, or even Christian Reeves in his three minutes, could only have done so much against such great players, but the effort needs to be there if Duke wants to continue to win. The Blue Devils may also just have a talent gap at the position, which is going to need more attention in terms of recruiting for coach Scheyer.
Filipowski did all he could for this Blue Devils squad, but except for Jeremy Roach’s 17 points, there was not much help for the star center, and that is going to need to be addressed before the Michigan State game.