NBA News NBA News, Match Reports and UpdatesDuke stumbles to Kentucky
Blue Devils’ offense goes cold in second half, with late
turnovers proving too costly in the end
Duke’s Kon Knueppel, left, fouls Kentucky’s Otega Oweh during Tuesday night’s Champions Classic game. (Photo by Dale Zanine/USA Today Sports Images)
ATLANTA – If the first half of Tuesday night’s Champions Classic game showed how good Duke can be against an elite team, the second half put Duke’s flaws on display for the first time.
The result — a 77-72 loss to Kentucky at State Farm Arena — leaves a taste of both bitterness and optimism.
The former is obvious, as the sixth-ranked Blue Devils lost for the first time this season. Boilerplate bitterness comes from holding a nine-point halftime lead and having it erode in the second half, as Duke (2-1) was 1-for-11 on 3s in the second half.
And the lasting images of freshman Cooper Flagg turning the ball over twice in the last 20 seconds — first when the score was tied, and then when Duke was down by two — will be hard to shake. It doesn’t undo the 26-point, 12-rebound game the 17-year-old had; it just introduces skepticism that will have to be answered at another time.
Therein lies the optimism moving forward — that Duke is bound to have plenty more chances, likely soon, to prove itself in pressure-cooker moments like those shown in front of 16,107 here in Atlanta.
“We’ve got a long season to go,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “I feel more optimistic tonight, losing, than I did even before. Because you find out in this game the character of your team, the heart that they have.
“And this team’s got a lot of heart.”
That much showed, as Duke led No. 19 Kentucky from around the 8½-minute mark of the first half all the way to the final four minutes. And after the Blue Devils lost the lead, they clawed back a couple of times and were in position to regain the lead in the final seconds.
Flagg made a jumper in the lane, the ball bouncing on the back iron so many times it seemed…
Source link : https://duke.rivals.com/news/duke-stumbles-to-kentucky?yptr=yahoo
Author : Devils Illustrated
Publish date : 2024-11-13 07:17:00
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