No. 7 Duke didn’t heed Coach K’s warning and it nearly led to a loss.
Mike Krzyzewski left Boston happy and exasperated at the same time on Tuesday night.
His No. 7 Blue Devils, after trailing most of the game while unable to shoot straight, got things together enough over the final eight minutes to beat Boston College 63-55 at Conte Forum.
For that, Duke’s Hall of Fame coach was grateful.
The rest of it, though, left him wondering what needs to happen for his team to fully embrace what he’s teaching.
“They have a lot of adversity with me because they didn’t listen to me,” Krzyzewski said. “So they are in trouble with me. That’s the main adversity they have, because it’s stupid not to listen. It’s stupid not to listen. I’ve warned them for two days about it.”
The Blue Devils (19-3, 9-2 ACC) routed Boston College 88-49 back on Dec. 31 at Cameron Indoor Stadium, so it makes sense they might not fear Tuesday night’s rematch on Boston College’s home court.
Not that Krzyzewski didn’t warn the players, showing them video of how well the Eagles (11-12, 5-7 ACC) have played lately.
Last Saturday night, Duke ventured into the Carrier Dome where the largest crowd to see a college basketball game this season was in attendance. Duke silenced the Orange-clad Syracuse fans among the 31,458 on hand to win 97-88.
As the Blue Devils huddled in a concourse prior to taking the floor for warmups Tuesday night, team captain Javin DeLaurier warned his teammates the energy level at Boston College, where the crowd was 8,606, wouldn’t be nearly the same. He implored his team to create their own energy.
For large parts of the game, the Blue Devils failed in that quest. They shot 26.7 percent in the first half to trail 24-21 at halftime. That’s the fewest points Duke scored in the first half all season.
“We didn’t have the right mindset before the game,” Blue Devils point guard Tre Jones said. “We were focused on the game, but we weren’t hungry like we should be.”
With eight minutes left, Duke’s shooting percentage remained a mediocre 33.3 percent — including 0-for-14 on 3-pointers — and Boston College led 47-43.
Get the picture?
The Blue Devils found themselves in a classic trap game, having won a big game at Syracuse last Saturday with a trip to the Smith Center to play rival North Carolina looming this weekend.
Krzyzewski kept changing things up. He used 10 players before the game was even eight minutes old.
To start the second half, he replaced 6-9 freshman Matthew Hurt and 6-2 junior Jordan Goldwire with freshman Wendell Moore and junior Alex O’Connell. Together with Tre Jones, Cassius Stanley and Vernon Carey, their athleticism was what Krzyzewski thought would make a difference.
In the end, it finally did but those five weren’t the only contributors.
Sophomore Joey Baker, after he wasn’t called into the game by Krzyzewski at Syracuse, scored eight second-half points while also contributing a steal and a rebound.
His 3-pointer with 7:33 to play, Duke’s lone made 3-pointer on 15 attempts Tuesday night, ignited a 13-2 run that put the Blue Devils in front for good.
Duke was in a position to lose and Baker helped snap his teammates out of their funk.
“I think we kind of realized it was go time for us,” Baker said. “We couldn’t mess around any more. We can’t do that, obviously. The ACC is such a good league. But we locked in and we started playing.”
Again, Krzyzewski said his players were warned not to, as Baker put it, mess around.
“Whether we were completely deserving of winning or not,” Krzyzewski said, “I thought in the second half, we at least put ourselves on the threshold of being deserving and we got it.”
Later in his post-game comments, while taking a larger look at college basketball, Krzyzewski said there are a lot of good teams but no great ones. Talking about his team, he said Duke has won a lot of games but is still in that good category.
Next month, when the postseason arrives, Krzyzewski needs his team to be great if it is going to compete for championships.
He still believes it can get there, that there’s room for improvement and consistency.
Duke wasn’t very good on Tuesday night and won. That’s good enough for some programs.
It left Krzyzewski fretting as the Blue Devils left Boston, finally able to focus their full attention on their struggling rival for Saturday’s first Duke-UNC game.
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 6:10 AM with the headline "No. 7 Duke didn’t heed Coach K’s warning and it nearly led to a loss.."