Duke Has Things To Work On Despite Big Comeback Victory

Wednesday night featured the renewal of the best rivalry in college basketball, and it did not disappoint. Duke used a furious comeback at the end regulation to force overtime where they were eventually able to pull off the shocking win. Anytime you are able to pull off a victory against a rival team its great, but Duke still has some things to clean up if they are going to be the Championship level team many think they could be.

First and foremost Duke needs to clean up the free throw shooting. On Wednesday night Duke was 16-31 from the free throw line which is a dreadful 51 percent. They were lucky to be able to come away with the victory despite that horrid percentage but that must improve especially come tournament time.

Quinn Cook and Tyus Jones are tremendous free throw shooters, as both are above 85 percent, but aside from them nobody else can knock them down consistently. The three other starters, Jahlil Okafor, Amile Jefferson, and Justise Winslow, are all at 60 percent or lower. Okafor had increased his free throw percentage in ACC play but missed on all six of his attempts against the Tar Heels.

When it comes down to the end of games and teams are fouling, Mike Krzyzewski might have to insert Matt Jones and Grayson Allen into the game because they are both above 75 percent off the bench. On Wednesday night the free throw struggles were glaring for Duke and their numbers from the charity stripe need to improve if they are going to have success in the NCAA tournament.

A couple of other areas where Duke struggled on Wednesday night were on the defensive backboard and with turnovers. Turnovers typically aren’t a problem for this Duke team with Jones being very good at taking care of the ball. The 16 turnovers against UNC was more of an aberration than something to be concerned about.

Rebounds on the other hand are not something to be panicked about, but could be a slight concern. The finals stats show that Duke was only out-rebounded by three, but there was a time in the game when North Carolina took over and dominated the glass. UNC ended the game with 19 offensive rebounds, and while they are the second best offensive rebounding team in the nation, that is still too big of a number.

Duke has strong rebounders at every position, with every starter averaging over three rebounds per game, but when they face a team with a big, or athletic front line they can struggle to collect defensive rebounds.

North Carolina is as good a test as they will get in terms of rebounding, and Duke weathered the storm for the most part, but if later on down the road they end up facing Kentucky, all five guys are going to have to box out and grab defensive rebounds.

Coach K and Duke’s fans have every right to be excited about winning this classic game between two fierce rivals. And while the flaws that showed up in this game weren’t a glaring cause for concern, Duke is still not a perfect team and they have room for improvement. Duke has five regular season games, and the ACC tournament to improve upon these things as they vie for a National Championship.