Duke MBB: How to Recover From the First Loss of the Season

Unless you have been away from the sports world for a few days, you know that the number one ranked Duke Blue Devils dropped their first game of the season on Saturday. A game the Blue Devils definitely should have won against a bottom-feeder ACC team, Boston College, got away from them. So how do they recover?

So last week I wrote an article on how and why the Duke Blue Devils would go undefeated, three days later they got shocked by Boston College giving them their first loss of the season. One could definitely see this coming though, maybe not to Boston College, but one could see a loss on the horizon.

The Blue Devils have been struggling lately and they have been down by double digits in most of their games recently. Against Texas and Florida they managed to overcome these deficits but unfortunately that won’t always work. If you continue to be down by double digits late in the game you’re gonna drop a few games here and there, and that’s exactly what happened Saturday afternoon in Boston.

In order to solve these problems they need to start moving the ball around more. Against Boston College they had only 13 assists, down from their season average which is 19.92 assists per game. If Duke is going to rebound from this defeat they need to start moving the ball around better.

Another thing that hurt the Blue Devils against Boston College was getting to the line. On average Duke has attempted 24.25 free throws per game, on Saturday that number was cut nearly in half as they went to the line only 13 times. If Duke wants to get their number one ranking back as soon as possible they need to put themselves in a position to get to the line more and be more aggressive.

Next: Boston College Feasts on Duke Freshmen

The final thing Duke needs to work on in order to recover is their defensive presence. Boston College had three players score over 20 points, Ky Bowman had 30, Jerome Robinson had 24, and Jordan Chatman had 22. The remainder of the team combined for 13 points. If they step up on defense and don’t allow multiple players to have great games than they will see significant improvements.

The good news is that Duke will not play another game until next Wednesday, the 20th when they take on the Evansville Aces, in what should be a rebound game. This should give them enough time to work on their flaws and bounce back in order to rise from the bottom of the ACC.