Jahlil Okafor Can’t Do It By Himself

Jahlil Okafor is a great player. He may even be the best and most dominant player in the country, but on Friday night Notre Dame proved that even Okafor can’t win a game all by himself. Notre Dame pulled off the mild upset in the ACC semifinals beating Duke 74-64 and Duke fans have a minor cause for concern.

I wrote on Thursday night that Duke was playing their best basketball at the perfect time, and before the loss to Notre Dame, that seemed to be true. Mike Brey and Notre Dame might have put together the best game plan Duke has seen all year, and it was certainly unconventional.

Brey decided to defend Okafor one-on-one and let him get his points, instead of double teaming and leaving Duke’s shooters open for three pointers. The plan worked to perfection and now other teams might have a blueprint of how to defend against Duke.

Okafor had a great game, scoring 28 points on 13-18 shooting, but the rest of the Blue Devils struggled mightily which is why they lost. At points Okafor was being guarded by six foot five inch Bonzie Colson, and even he wasn’t given help.

Brey looks like a genius after the win because even though Okafor put up great numbers, nobody else on Duke did much of anything. Quinn Cook had his worst game of the year scoring only seven points on 2-12 shooting, Tyus Jones also was regularly misfiring as he went 4-13 from the field.

Justise Winslow had an awful first half, so much so that he was benched to start the second half. Winslow did end up coming on in the second half and finished with a double-double but Duke had already dug itself too deep of a hole.

Everybody on Duke not named Okafor combined to shoot 33 percent from the floor, and that is not a recipe for success.

The news isn’t all bad for Duke fans though. This is just one loss in the conference tournament and it will likely have no effect on them in the NCAA tournament. Duke will still be either a one or two seed in the tournament, and still has a great shot of making a Final Four run.

Okafor is the top talent on the Blue Devils, but there is still plenty of talent around him. Friday nights game was likely more of an aberration than a trend. The odds of Cook, Jones, Winslow, and Grayson Allen all having a bad game in the same contest aren’t high as Duke enters the NCAA Tournament.

So while Duke fans have the right to be a little concerned by Friday nights loss, just know that the team is still crazy talented and this loss was likely nothing more than a blip on the radar. Friday night just proved what we probably should have already known, Jahlil Okafor can’t do it all by himself, he needs help from his teammates, and luckily for Duke he has gotten that help in almost every game this season.