When Duke is Duke, as it was against TCU, no one is going to beat Blue Devils
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- No. 1 seed Duke used a big second half to easily beat TCU, 81-58, in the NCAA Tournament.
- Blue Devils (34-2) have now made the Sweet 16 and are 4 wins from a national title.
- Center Patrick Ngongba II returned from injury for Duke and helped shoulder inside load.
Now that is what it looks like when Duke is Duke.
After a Siena snoozefest Thursday that nearly knocked overall No. 1 seed Duke out of the tournament, Duke rebounded in impressive fashion Saturday, whipping No. 9 seed TCU, 81-58, in a second-round NCAA Tournament game while also getting back one of its key injured players just in time for next week’s Sweet 16.
TCU shot only 10-for-38 in the second half, which worked out to 26.3%. Duke played the sort of defense it’s been known for during a 34-2 season that included an ACC Tournament championship and now a Sweet 16 berth against the winner of St. John’s and Kansas.
“I just thought the defense in the second half was big-time,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “We found it.”
Patrick Ngongba II, Duke’s 6-11 center, had been nursing a foot injury that kept him out of all of the ACC Tournament and the Siena game, too. He played nearly 13 minutes in this one and had a rare “quintuple four” stat line — four points, four rebounds, four assists, four turnovers and four fouls.
While those numbers aren’t going to win you any awards, Ngongba’s presence will be important as Duke moves into the next weekend of the tournament. He takes some of the pressure off Cameron Boozer inside, helping with rim protection. His teammates were glad to see him return.
“He gave us a lot of juice coming back,” said Boozer, who rebounded from a too-passive first half to finish with 19 points and 11 rebounds. “To see him out there — we all got happy, ecstatic. I almost started jumping around and stuff, just because we know how hard he works and we know how much he means to the team.”
Ngongba got one of the game’s biggest cheers when he checked in after nearly four minutes had elapsed.
Duke didn’t get down early in this one as it had against 16th seed Siena. The Blue Devils trailed Siena by 11 at halftime in Greenville and were in danger of suffering only the third “16 vs. 1” upset ever in the men’s tournament.
This time Duke led 38-34 at the half, although TCU actually took a 40-38 lead in the first four minutes of the second half. The Blue Devils had some periods of real sloppiness, committing 17 turnovers for the game (five from Boozer).
From that brief two-point deficit, though, Duke tightened the screws defensively. And the 6-9, 250-pound Boozer started to act like his brother Cayden, getting the ball up top in a point forward role on several possessions and then driving downhill.
“He’s really a point guard,” Scheyer said. “We have two point guards on the floor with him and Cayden. His ability to play pick-and-roll, his ability to pass, and his ability to create his own shots and get downhill, we call it ‘starting the dominoes’ — he does a great job of that. It’s a luxury having two guys on the floor that see the game and think the game that way.”
TCU (23-12) gradually got overwhelmed. The Horned Frogs had come in as an 11.5-point underdog, but by the end the final margin was exactly double that.
Duke had looked like itself again. The Siena game, only 48 hours before, suddenly seemed like a long time ago.
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