The Duke Blue Devils won their ninth game after over coming a miserable stretch midway through the first half. Lead by the recurring star Jabari Parker with 23 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists. Quinn Cook played all 40 minutes added 14 points and 5 assists, but defensively was outstanding.
Duke struggled early with the UCLA zone. Coach K said we “did not attack the zone”,and “we were playing out at the NBA line.” Duke went into the half with a 37-37 tie. Duke opened the second half with a better attack plan, and easily shredded the zone shooting 53.3% compared to 44.1% in the first half. Duke made 11 threes with Parker knocking down 4. Duke does not see zone too often, so it was a good tuneup for the Syracuse zone in the new ACC.
Coach K, when asked about his team getting better, said “we are becoming a good team”, and that “you can’t compare November stats to December, or December to January.” Its a long season and K always has a knack for motivating his teams. The 2010 team were National Champions and became a great team as a result. This team has more talent, but if he called them great now, what is the motivation to get better? Jabari Parker can become “a special player” according to K. He does need to improve his defense according to his Coach.
The battle for playing time is the underlying theme of this Duke team. Rasheed Sulaimon played 18 mins and scored 8 points and added 5 rebounds. Andre Dawkins only played 7 minutes and added an early three pointer on 1 of 5 shooting on the night.
Sulaimon played well defensively and added 4 assists. This will be a tough stretch for cold streaks and playing time, so everyone needs to be ready to play each night when called upon.
Rodney Hood scored 14 points and had 5 rebounds. Amile Jefferson added 11 points and7 boards. Overall Duke dominated the boards winning 41-33 including 10 offensive boards. Duke had 36 points in the paint to UCLA’s 26. Two categories Duke struggles as a team, highlighted their win tonight.
UCLA was lead by ex-UNC transfer David Wear with 16 points. That may be the UCLA problem, Wear and his brother Travis are starters, but the likes of highly acclaimed recruits such as Tony Parker who added 2 points and 6 boards in 15 minutes. A virtual non-factor.
Duke could have been dominated inside with the bigs of UCLA, but handled the challenge. Duke has a little over a week until their matchup with Eastern Michigan next Saturday.
