Duke Defeats Portland State, 99-81

It didn’t look great heading into halftime as Duke trailed by five heading into the break but the Blue Devils pulled away in the second to secure the 18 point win over Portland State.

While Portland State was having their fun in the first half flirting with their upset over the number one ranked team in team nation, Duke fans across the nation weren’t sweating even a drop. We knew there was no chance that Duke would lose. We knew that this collection of talent wasn’t going to lose to a team like Portland State in November.

I do have to give credit where credit is due. Portland State played competitive for much longer than I expected. I expected the typical ten minute surge from teams when they play a big opponent and then the game to go the way most expected. Those Vikings played tough for 35 whole minutes.

There were a couple of things I noticed while watching this game.

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The first was that Duke relies too much on their athleticism too often. Duke had nine blocks in the game and forced a bunch more contested drives but overall their defense looks like it relies on their athletes more than it does sound defense. For example, in the first five games Duke has been caught off guard while ball watching a ridiculous amount of times. However, that gets masqueraded by the amount of sheer athleticism that Duke has. It got exposed against Michigan State and it’s an issue that needs to be fixed before Duke heads into ACC play.

Another thing I noticed was that the Duke bigs are playing much better defense in the post. They do over contest when they extend out but that’s something that can easily be fixed. A week and a half ago, Duke’s low post defense was similar to that of a revolving door. Marques Bolden, Marvin Bagley and Wendell Carter looked sluggish and maybe even uninterested in playing defense. Guys were getting behind them with ease and they looked clueless. Against Portland State, they didn’t over extend nearly as much as they have in recent games. They stayed home more and forced a bunch of contested shots (a good amount ended up going in) and blocked nine shots. It’s a step forward and as the season progresses, I can see this being less of an issue.

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A couple of other notes:

–Marvin Bagley is the best athlete on the floor 95% of the time. He can get whatever he wants, whenever he wants. He needs to work on his free throws and his shooting outside the paint. His ability to get up as high as he does on his second and third jumps makes him almost impossible to box out. He will continue to get whatever he wants in the paint. Duke needs to do more of getting him in pick and pop or pick and roll situations. Those will open the floor up more for him as well as the guards.

-Grayson Allen has matured tenfold. There were a couple of times in this game where the old Grayson might have lost his cool but the new Grayson kept his composure and kept it moving. (The double technical was BS, by the way).

-Duke gets scoring in so many ways. This is a very balanced scoring team. Gary Trent didn’t shoot it all that well and still had 11 points. Trevon Duval chipped in 22 points. Bagley and Carter both had double doubles. Bolden and Alex O’Connell chipped in eight and nine points respectively. Duke won’t have a problem getting points from guys. It’s going to come down to defense.