Charlottesville, Virginia. Jon Scheyer was visibly upset the last time he walked out of John Paul Jones Arena. As his Blue Devils took care of business on Monday night, their head coach had a very different reaction.
No. 3 Duke defeated Virginia 80-62. Though the Cavaliers stayed up with the Blue Devils for the first few minutes, Scheyer’s team pulled away with three straight 3-pointers from Isaiah Evans and a powerful rebounding performance by Cooper Flagg. The Newport, Maine native had a double-double in the first half alone, just hours after collecting his record-tying 10th ACC Rookie of the Week award.
“I think we’re just a team that can exploit a lot of different things that a defense gives,” Evans said after the game.
Maliq Brown, Duke’s defensive standout, departed the game in the final two minutes of the first half due to an apparent left shoulder injury. The squad promptly stated that he would not return for the second half. In his postgame news conference, Scheyer stated that Brown dislocated his left shoulder and would undergo more imaging.
The Blue Devils made their money from the glass. Blake Buchanan, the Cavaliers’ top rebounder and tallest player, struggled to keep up with Duke’s length. In the first half, he had only two points (the first two of the game) and two rebounds. The Blue Devils, specifically Flagg, took advantage. He had 11 rebounds for a double-double in the first half and established a new career record less than two minutes later. Flagg finished the contest with 17 points, 14 rebounds, two blocks, and two steals. The visitors outrebounded their opponents 41-21, including 10 offensive rebounds.
“We just have a strong desire to get the ball,” Kon Knueppel remarked.
In the first half, Duke hit more than half of his three-point attempts. And if the Blue Devils missed, they just grabbed their own rebounds and tried again. Evans scored three points off the bench in the first half, one on a fast break seconds after entering the game and two after offensive rebounds. He made two free throws in the second half, falling one point shy of his career best set against Auburn in December. Evans’ sixth three increased Duke’s advantage to 68-43.
“Everybody knows the shot making,” according to Scheyer; “but what I’m seeing is the blocked shots, the defending, the rebounding.”
The youngster is also establishing his worth on defense. Perhaps learning from Brown, Evans’ aggressive hands blocked Andrew Rohde’s layup late in the opening session. Flagg collected the rock, which Sion James put through the basket two seconds later.
“A lot of the time, I’m either not in the game or I’m taken out because I make a defensive mistake. “[Brown’s] teaching me how to do things and what to look out for,” Evans said of Brown’s mentorship.
The audience had quieted down midway through the first half as Duke drew away, but a slump early in the second half got them back into the game. Jacob Cofie and Anthony Robinson both blocked Knueppel and Flagg, and Dai Dai Ames’ layup threw the crowd into a frenzy as the home team trailed 51-33. Patrick Ngongba II’s smooth dunk stopped the Blue Devils’ two-minute scoreless streak, and the crowd swiftly quieted. With Brown out, Ngongba played 11 minutes in the second half and scored eight points.
Both clubs started the night with no offensive possessions. Maluach interrupted Cofie’s layup attempt and subsequently fumbled the ball under his own hoop. Buchanan was the first to post on the forums, but Flagg reacted immediately. Thus started five minutes of back-and-forth action before the first media break, during which Virginia only missed once and Duke twice, with Flagg grabbing his own rebound for second-chance points. At 14:41, the Blue Devils led 13-12.
They transformed it into 21-14 in just over four minutes, outrebounding the Cavaliers 6-1 during that time. Flagg made a hard block on Taine Murray as the 6-foot-5 senior attempted to drive on him, then gathered in the rebound to set up a Proctor triple.
“It’s good to see them go down early,” Knueppel stated. “Especially it makes it hard on the defense, just to know that they have to react to us.”
Throughout the second half, Virginia’s offense attempted to claw its way back. Isaac McKneely, the Cavaliers’ highest scorer this season, hit two of his team’s three triples. He finished the night with 14 points, which was more than his season average but not enough to keep Virginia in the game.
Duke returns to a neutral court Saturday night, hosting Illinois in the SentinelOne Classic at Madison Square Garden.
