Duke has gone through a rugged stretch of the schedule with mixed results, but closing out November with a victory is still achievable.
The No. 11 Blue Devils take on visiting Seattle on Friday night at Durham, N.C.
“We focused, the whole summer, on being our best in March,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “That doesn’t mean we want to sacrifice winning in November. Every game, we’ve been coming in to win. That’s what we can do and should do.”
Duke (4-2) is coming off Tuesday night’s 75-72 loss to No. 1 Kansas in Las Vegas.
That game had several ebbs and flows and revealed the grand possibilities and glitches that come with the Blue Devils.
“I think it says a lot about the potential this team has, but also the character, right now, that we have,” Scheyer said. “To me, it’s character. You either have a competitive spirit or you don’t.”
Duke’s 13-point deficit in the first half marked its largest hole of the season. The ability to rally was one of the positives that the Blue Devils identified.
“As much as I badly want to win — I think maybe at some point, I’ve thought about if I’m crazy for the schedule that we’ve had our first six games,” Scheyer said. “But I did it with this group because I thought they could take it. They’re wired the right way. They have toughness about them. The growth that we’re going to have from this game, this whole trip — playing at Arizona and then playing Kansas on a neutral site — we’re going to grow so much.”
Duke has relied on freshmen Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel in clutch situations. Those ones didn’t work out for the Blue Devils in losses to Kentucky and Kansas, but there could be big-picture benefits.
“We’ll understand how teams are going to play us,” Scheyer said. “We’ll understand time and score. All those kinds of things, we need to continue to improve.”
Duke guard Tyrese Proctor scored all 15 of his points on 3-pointers vs. Kansas. The five 3s marked a career high for the junior.
The Blue Devils have demonstrated depth at times. In four of their games, reserves have contributed at least 20 points.
Seattle (2-4) had a two-game winning streak snapped with a 61-56 loss to Furman in the nightcap in Las Vegas. That marked the lowest-scoring game of the season for the Redhawks.
“Defensively we want to dictate,” Seattle coach Chris Victor said. “We don’t want to be reactive. So everything we do is aggressive.”
Seattle has shot only 42 percent from the field while opponents are hitting at 49.5 percent.
The leading scorer for the Redhawks is forward Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe with 14.5 points per game. He makes 63.2 percent of his shots from the field and he’s averaging a team-leading 10.5 rebounds.
Seattle was the champion of the College Basketball Invitational last spring.
This is the first meeting between the Redhawks and Blue Devils. The game will be Duke’s first home outing since Nov. 16.
–Field Level Media
