Welp, that escalated quickly – or whatever the Ron Burgundy line is. The Blue Devils blasted the Arizona Sun Devils 103-47 in a charity exhibition event called The Brotherhood Run benefitting Duke’s Children’s Hospital. The Blue Devils welcomed back Bobby Hurley ( Head Coach of Arizona State ) who admitted he had only been back to Cameron 1 time since he was a student.
The Blue Devils and Sun Devils, at least through the first half, looked like 2 teams playing in a first game. Duke jumped out to a lead but that lead never reached the double-digit mark Putin the 11:45 mark of the first half on a Mason Gillis layup assisted from Kon Knueppel. The Blue Devils pushed the lead to 37-21 at the break. Neither team shot the ball well in the first half with both teams only making two 3-pointers each off of double figure attempt but Duke’s defense never wavered and that was the difference in the first half. The Blue Devils forced 9 first half turnovers from the Sun Devils including 6 steals and 9 points off of turnovers.
Then the second half began and it was the beginning of the end for the Sun Devils. Duke used the first 10 minutes of the second half to go on a 35 to 13 run.
15 of the 35 points were delivered from the hands of freshman Kon Knueppel, who scored 19 points overall – going 4-8 from 3. Kon also dished 4 assists and pulled down 5 rebounds. As a team, in the second half, the Blue Devils shot 65.2% from beyond the arc and 50% for the game. Following Duke’s 35 to 13 run, they followed it up with a 31 to 13 run to end the game.
The Blue Devils were led in scoring by freshman Kon Knueppel who dropped 19 points. Followed by 17 from sophomore Caleb Foster who added 3 assists and 2 steals. 3 Blue Devils, Tyrese Proctor, Darren Harris and Mason Gillis scored 10 points each. Overall the Blue Devils shot 17 of 34 from 3 (50%) and 54.5% overall. The Blue Devils out-rebounded the Sun Devils 47-31 and held Bobby Hurley’s team to 28.1% shooting. The Blue Devils had 7 different players hit 3’s in the game and had 7 players with 2 or more assists.
It’s obviously hard to take away from this game, it clearly got away from the Sun Devils but the Blue Devils looked good and more importantly they looked tough. They were physical and responded to Coach Jon Scheyer’s halftime messages and turned things around. A positive sign for the Blue Devils, who struggled from the outside in the first half was their ability to own the paint when those outside shots didn’t fall.
