NC State has athletic, quality big men that can score. In the past this is the type of team that can give Duke a lot of trouble. I thought Duke could be in significant trouble against this NC State team tonight in their house. Duke, as we all know, is still trying to figure out their roles and how they will play without Kyrie Irving. Recently they have been struggling with this, Maryland had Duke on the ropes in Durham, FSU beat them and Virginia had a lead on Duke at Cameron Indoor. This was a game that if Duke didn't come out and get control of the game early and get contributions from everyone who hasn't been contributing in the previously mentioned games, Duke would lose. The Plumlees had to step up, Ryan Kelly had to step up, in general there had to be scoring from somewhere other than Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler.
So lets see how it went.
Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith shot a combined 15-37 FGs and 3-14 from 3. This isn't a good sign right? Well, Duke played a total of 9 players in the game and all of them that played, scored, not only in the entire game but all 9 scored in the first half! If your a big Duke fan you'd probably assume that most of the points came from Andre Dawkins and Seth Curry. You would be wrong. After Singler and Smith, Miles Plumlee stepped up with 13 pts on 5-7 shooting while Ryan Kelly scored 11 pts on 4-4 shooting 2-2 from 3.
Ok lets go back to Miles for a second, Miles Plumlee scored 13 pts in 21 minutes. Miles has been struggling big time recently, to the tune of 10 minutes, 0 pts and 3 rbs in the last 2 games. It almost looked like Miles was going to start seeing less minutes than freshman Josh Hairston. Nobody, including me, would've predicted that Miles was going to break out against quality big men like NC State's, but we all would be wrong. Miles played with purpose, hit the boards on both ends grabbing 5 offensive rbs, a total of 9 and he even made a POST MOVE AND FINISHED INSIDE! Honestly it maybe was one of the first back to the basket post moves from a Plumlee since Mason's outburst against Marquette earlier this year. It was great to see Miles step up and hopefully it is a sign of things to come from him. Mason wasn't to be outdone tonight by his big brother though, his focus was on the boards and defense. Mason ended the game with 9 rbs (4 offensive) and 6 blocks, 5 of the blocks were in the first half when NC State was trying very hard to pound the ball inside and establish their post game. To finish of the trifecta of Duke big men playing well was Ryan Kelly, playing in his home town of Raleigh, NC, Kelly's hot shooting night started off the opening tip hitting a 3 to start the scoring for the game. Kelly wouldn't miss after that and also grabbed 8 rbs and blocked 2 shots.
I have asked for this from Duke's big men in previous blogs and they finally stepped up unexpectedly tonight against a good front line of NC State. We have to hope that the three big men for Duke build off of this good performance and continue to gain confidence moving forward in the ACC season.
Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler didn't shoot well, but still led the team in scoring, Smith dropped in 22 pts and Singler ended with 18. Neither had a great game but even their below average games are All ACC worthy. If Duke can play like it did tonight the rest of the way, getting contributions from more than just Smith and Singler, they will be very tough to beat.
This was a good day to be a Duke fan, more good news about Kyrie Irving (don't let Mr Negative Jay Bilas get you down with his comment's during the game about Irving coming back being a pipe dream) and then win on the road where they controlled the entire game.
Next up @ Wake Forest on Saturday, should be easier than tonight but never sleep on a road game in the ACC, even if it is this year's much less intimidating ACC.
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