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WINSTON-SALEM, NC – We’ve reached the point in the college basketball season where the question needs to be asked.
Is Duke really that good or is the ACC just bad?
Let’s just say the answer could be yes to both.
ACC is bad. Historically bad. So bad that of the league’s 18 teams, 8 are saddled with sub-.500 overall records and are ranked 111th or worse in the NCAA’s NET rankings as the calendar turns to February.
But none of that has any bearing on the Blue Devils’ legitimacy as a national championship contender.
John Scheier’s No. 2-ranked team showed just how good it can be again on Dec. 4 when it defeated Auburn, the team currently ranked No. 1, in a season-opening clash of titans at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
As impressive as that win was, Saturday’s 63-56 victory at Wake Forest could have provided an even more significant glimpse into Duke’s ceiling come tournament time.
And not in the way it’s likely to be perceived nationally.
Yes, the Blue Devils were held to their lowest point total of the season, had more turnovers than assists and had to overcome a second-half deficit for the first time in nearly 2 months against an opponent most viewed as just another road speed bump to the current slate and reaching 20-0 in the ACC.
But no, it’s not because they sleepwalked their way through a road game in late January that they should have won by more.
They were put in a precarious situation against a 15-5 Wake team much better than analytics suggested.
Kicked in the mouth early in the second half.
Down 6 with 10 minutes to go.
Nothing is going right at either end of the court with a hostile sellout crowd rooting for the home team.
It’s a situation similar to the one that brought out the best in last year’s team, leading to a memorable on-court storm that resulted in a controversial injury to star Kyle Filipowski.
Only this time, new star Cooper Flagg and his teammates rose to the challenge. They didn’t have their “A” game. Probably not their “B” game either.
Still, they managed to win a game they could have easily lost to extend the nation’s longest winning streak to 13 while improving to 17-2. Which is more than No. 9 Kentucky, No. 11 Oregon and No. 13 Texas A&M, all of whom were upset, can say this weekend.
Deacons coach Steve Forbes had a simple reason to explain how Duke survived his team’s best shot and why it’s a team capable of making a deep run in March and April.
“Their leading scorer last year was the first pick in the second round (of the NBA Draft),” he said, missing the Utah Jazz’s selection of Filipovski by one pick. “This guy (Flagg) is going to be the first pick in the first round. Big difference.”
That there is.
But there is much more to the Blue Devils than their most high-profile player.
Although Flagg’s hyper-competitiveness is contagious, and he scored 11 of his 24 points during the Blue Devils’ 24-11 run to close the game with the final 8:09, he had plenty of help to pull his team to the finish line in Saturday.
Not everything came from his teammates on the court.
Scheier, now in his fourth season after taking over from Mike Krzyzewski, showed his growth as a coach by taking a page out of his mentor’s book during a key moment in the second half.
With Wake gaining confidence and Duke looking confused in the midst of a 23-4 Deacons run, Scheier dropped his trademark man-to-man defense for a zone that caught more than just the opposition by surprise.
Asked by his coach if he had ever played zone before during a postgame media session, Flagg shook his head and said no.
His teammate Kon Knueppel had a similar reaction.
It was a bold move. But it worked. Not only did the Deacons only score once on the 6 possessions, Duke went into the zone. The Blue Devils responded with points each time from the other end of the field to shift the momentum and regain control.
“We kept it in our back pocket just in case,” Scheier said of the defensive surprise. “It’s nice to have a curve ball.”
It’s an option that came in handy against a bubble team in January. But could be a savior against an elite national contender in the Sweet 16 or Elite 8.
So is the composure the Blue Devils have shown in the face of some rare adversity.
“We have to be in those situations,” Scheier said. “It wasn’t panic mode. We’ve talked a lot more about the mental preparation and endurance you need to have in these environments. And these guys are executed. So I think that was an important step for us.”
Even more important, perhaps, than another bad result by another bad team from a bad conference.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
