Duke hosts Notre Dame on a Snowy Saturday in Durham

The Blue Devils look to extend their winning streak to 10 with a conference matchup at home against the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame at noon on Saturday.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Micah Shrewsberry is in his second season after taking over for Mike Brey as the head man at Notre Dame. Notre Dame currently sits at 7-8 overall and 1-3 in conference, they are coming off of back to back 1 point conference losses to North Carolina and NC State. The Irish are 4th in the ACC in 3-point percentage at 37.6% and top 10 in both steals and offensive rebounding.

Markus Burton leads the Irish in both scoring and assists at 18.4 per game and 4.0 respectively. He leads a quartet of double-figure scorers including forward Tae Davis at 16.5, Braeden Shrewsberry at 15.9 and grad student Matt Allocco at 10.1 points per game. Allocco leads the starters in 3-point shooting at 48.3% per game. Kebbe Njie leads the Irish with 6.1 rebounds per game.

Duke Blue Devils

With a record of 13-2 and a conference mark of 5-0, the Blue Devils enter Saturday riding a 9 game winning streak. The Blue Devils are tops in the ACC in most offensive and defensive categories including:

• Scoring
• Assists
• Rebounding
• 3pt%
• 2pt%
• Scoring defense

Duke is led by freshman Cooper Flagg in several categories including points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals. His 17.5 points per game leads a trio of double-figure point producers. Freshman Kon Knueppel scores 12.7 points per game adding 2.7 assists per game. Junior guard Tyrese Proctor is having a superb year shooting the ball from deep, he’s currently shooting 43% from beyond the arc and scoring 11.7 points per game.

Final Thoughts

Notre Dame is a different team with a healthy Markus Burton. Since returning, after being injured in the Rutgers game back in November, Burton has worked himself back into the starting lineup. He’s scored 23 and 15 points in his 2 games back. I expect a hungry Notre Dame team on Sunday, especially after having lost 2 straight games by a single point. Duke will need to do what they have been doing – executing on the offensive end with efficiency and continue being the stingiest defense in the NCAA. Markus Burton is going to get his, the key for Duke is making him a volume shooter but a poor efficiency one. Forcing Notre Dame into tough 2-point shots off the dribble, making them operate in one on one situations late in the shot clock. Notre Dame has excellent shooters in Shrewsberry and Allocco, making sure to chase them off the line and not give them early looks that get them into a rhythm will be important.

From there, Duke needs to rebound the basketball on the defensive end. The Blue Devils, while not giving up a ton of second chance points, have been giving up a few too many second chance opportunities – when a defense works as hard as Duke’s does, it’s important to pay it off by securing the possession for the offense.

Offensively, the Blue Devils still aren’t as good as they can be, often missing some opportunities for easy buckets by pre-determining their moves. The Blue Devils could very easily be the best team offensively in the nation if it cashed in their potential assists at a higher level. That doesn’t mean Duke’s offense isn’t top tier, but it goes to show that as good as they are, there are still levels to ascend to. Notre Dame provides a good opportunity to show and improve.