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Pre-Tournament Rank: No. 13
How They’ve Looked: Defensive. Holding Vermont to a season-worst 47 in the first round wasn’t too surprising, but limiting James Madison to a season-worst 55 in the second round felt like a statement by the Blue Devils. In both losses to North Carolina and in the court-storming fiasco at Wake Forest, it seemed like Duke couldn’t stop anything. It was quite active on that end of the floor in Brooklyn, though, racking up 21 steals and nine blocks.
Bread and Butter: Efficient offense. Duke hasn’t been a “lives and dies by the three” team in at least a decade at this point. It does have plenty of perimeter shooting at its disposal, though, most notably freshman Jared McCain, who hit eight triples against JMU. This team is also quite good at scoring inside the arc, with six of its primary seven players making at least 52.5 percent of two-point attempts. The Devils don’t often commit turnovers, either, all resulting in a top-five offense.
Achilles’ Heel: Close games. We’ve brought this up a ton over the past 10 days or so, but Duke is just 2-7 in games decided by seven points or fewer—and one of the two wins was that extremely controversial ending against Clemson. Can the Devils grind out a tight win in a physical battle, or will they fold?
MVP: Kyle Filipowski. Anyone in Duke’s starting five can be “the guy” on any given day, and it’s wild that Flip only officially attempted one shot in the first round against Vermont. He still racked up 12 rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals, though, which is what makes him the MVP, leading the team in points, rebounds, blocks and steals.
Championship Blueprint: Keep defending at a high level, get at least four of the five starters going on offense and play tougher than ever.
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