Duke Basketball: Blue Devils would be unranked if games ended at half

March may be unkind to the Duke basketball players unless their first-half play undergoes a speedy transformation.

You win some. You lose some. As for first halves, the Duke basketball team has lost more than it should have.

NINE TIMES.

Roughly a third of its first halves this season.

Three in a row at the moment (not so uncoincidentally coinciding with the absence of Zion Williamson, who remains day-to-day after suffering a Grade 1 knee sprain on Duke’s first possession against UNC on Feb. 20).

Five of the past seven (mostly coinciding with its recently completed six-game stretch, the most daunting of any team in the nation this season).

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Excuses aside, though, if games ended at the half, No. 3 Duke (24-4; 12-3 in ACC), who will host unranked Miami (12-15; 4-11 in ACC) today at 4 p.m. on CBS, would itself be unranked.

Worse yet, still assuming games ended at the half, with a 19-9 overall record, including an 8-7 mark in conference play, the Blue Devils would still be at a slight risk — especially if they lost their three remaining games to close out the regular season, followed by a quick loss in the ACC Tournament — of missing out on the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1995.

Let that sink in.

Thank goodness, though, Duke ranks second in the nation (behind Gonzaga) in second-half scoring margin.

And its 10.3-point average advantage after the break would surely be even greater if not for its dozen or so blowouts that have forced coach Mike Krzyzewski to call off the dogs early. That suggests there could be an even greater gap between the Blue Devils’ second-half average margin and their 7.6-point average first-half margin.

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Overall, the performances are night and day from the first half to the second (cue three notable recent examples: “The Comeback” at Louisville and home games against Boston College and Georgia Tech).

And since the first-half woes have been most glaring in ACC games, let’s focus on what seems to have gone wrong in those.

First, Duke’s intensity on defense has been lacking a bit out of the gates, averaging only 3.7 steals prior to halftime against conference opponents (compared to an average of 4.7 steals against ACC foes after halftime).

But the biggest issue for the Blue Devils in first halves since ACC play began seems to have been a few too many 3-point attempts with far too many misses.

They are 49-for-188 from beyond the arc in first halves against the ACC (an average of 12.5 attempts). That’s 26.1 percent. That’s dismal. If that was the overall percentage from deep for the season, it would rank dead last among all 351 Division I teams.

True, there are probably other factors at play that have led to several first-half disasters. True, the Blue Devils have still managed to limit their losses to only four and are still the betting favorites to have One Shining Moment on April 8.

Also true, though, is that one atrocious first half has the power to instantly put an end to the chances of Duke seeing April at all. After all, the Blue Devils can’t count on another 23-point comeback with under 10 minutes to play like the one at Louisville; even if they did, if it happened in the NCAA Tournament, they’d risk losing half their fanbase to heart attacks.

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And the Blue Devils, even without Zion, have no excuse not to lead at halftime — preferably by double digits and hopefully signaling a pre-halftime transformation — against lowly Miami today.

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