Duke Rides Stifling Defense To Sweet Sixteen

The big question that has surrounded the Duke Blue Devils all season is whether their defense is good enough to be a Championship contender. On Sunday afternoon their defense sure looked worthy as they beat number eight seed San Diego State by the score of 68-49. Duke will move onto the Sweet Sixteen where they will face off with Utah on Friday afternoon.

Duke’s offense once again looked great, as it has all season, on Sunday, but the play on the defensive end was the more impressive part. San Diego State is not a great offensive team by any means but they have some talented players, and let’s not forget they were just coming off a game where they dropped 76 points against St. Johns.

On Sunday Duke held the Aztecs to 33 percent from the field and just 2-13 from three, where they were extremely proficient in round one. San Diego State’s best player J.J. O’Brien, was held to just 2-10 from the field, being guarded at times by Justise Winslow and other times by Jahlil Okafor.

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At the start of the second half San Diego State ran high pick and roll with Malik Pope, who was being guarded by Okafor, and Pope nailed two three pointers off of that play. After those two three pointers Mike Krzyzewski showed his greatness by putting Winslow on Pope, so that the three wasn’t wide open. Okafor then moved over to guarding O’Brien and did a tremendous job.

As a team Duke’s defense was very good, but Okafor and Winslow in particular stood out. Okafor has been knocked for his lack of a defensive presence, but in this game he did a very good job on that side of the ball. He finished with three blocks, protected the rim well, and contested everything around him.

Winslow is known as a defensive stopper so his performance in this game comes as no surprise, but that doesn’t make it any less spectacular. Winslow had a double-double and also added three blocks and four steals. One of the blocks was highlight worthy, and prompted Grant Hill, who was doing the broadcast, to say that Winslow might be the best defensive player Duke has ever had. Hill later said he might have overreacted, but that is the type of talent this kid has.

We always knew Duke had the talent individually on the defensive side of the ball to be very good, it was just a matter of them coming together and playing team defense. If Okafor can play defense like this every game, and Winslow continues to be the jack of all trades, this Duke team will be very tough to beat.

The next test comes Friday when they take on Utah in Houston, Winslow’s home town, and one of the best players in the country, Delon Wright.

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