Duke basketball: Vernon Carey Jr. breaks 20-year-old program record

The highlights, records, and such are all quickly piling up for the leading man from the latest Duke basketball show.

What Shane Battier did in 1999, twenty years later, Vernon Carey Jr. did one better — or one less, depending on how one wants to phrase the feat. Across his 23 minutes on the court during an 87-52 beatdown of Cal on Thursday night at the 2K Empire Classic inside Madison Square Garden — the Blue Devils’ first test with a No. 1 in front of their name — the Duke basketball freshman center scored 31 points.

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On Dec. 21, 1999, in a 109-65 home win over Davidson, Battier had put up 31 points of his own. But the legend who put No. 31 on the program’s list of retired jersey numbers had played 24 minutes before his evening came to a close.

And per the official Twitter account for Duke basketball stats, Battier’s performance marked the first time a Blue Devil who finished with less than 25 minutes of playing time for a game ever finished with more than 30 points.

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Now, Carey Jr. has made the mark one minute more difficult to beat. Now, understand the above explanation of the record does NOT claim the 6-foot-10, 270-pound lefty set a record for the fewest number of required minutes to surpass 30 points.

After all, on Dec. 10, 1988, during a 117-102 Duke win at Miami, another guy with his number now hanging from Cameron Indoor Stadium’s rafters, No. 35 Danny Ferry, piled up 34 points by halftime on his way to 58 points for the game. And this is important to bring up for two reasons: to better explain what Carey Jr.’s new record is NOT and to have an excuse to again watch the thing-of-beauty YouTube highlight video below.

Another way to put it, for some current or future Blue Devil to break the record Carey Jr. now holds, head coach Mike Krzyzewski (or the head coach at the time) would have to bench such a player for the rest of the game — or the player would have to foul out — before he had reached 23 minutes of total playing time but after he had already eclipsed 30 points.

Therefore, if Carey Jr.’s record does fall one day, then the player who would have broken it would likely have done so during a blowout.

Anyway, while the record is honestly still rather confusing even after the above explanation, you get the idea: it points to Carey Jr.’s excellence and growing confidence. The 18-year-old Southwest Ranches, Fla., native’s stock-boosting night included an 11-for-18 clip from the field, an 8-for-9 clip from the charity stripe, one 3-point basket off only one attempt, 12 rebounds (six on each end), and four blocks.

Also, according to the Duke stats Twitter account, Carey Jr.’s 21 points as Duke entered halftime with a 40-21 lead marked the first time a Blue Devil has matched or exceeded an opposing team’s halftime score since then-freshman Grayson Allen put up 19 to Wake Forest’s 15 at halftime of Duke’s eventual 94-51 home win on March 4, 2015.

Also, as the same Twitter account noted, Carey Jr., who is looking more and more like a 2020 lottery pick, joined former one-and-done Duke basketball greats Marvin Bagley III and Zion Williamson as the only freshmen in program history to have totaled at least 30 points, 10 rebounds, and four blocks in a game.

But considering Bagley did so with 31/10/4 during a 96-85 loss at N.C. State on Jan. 6, 2018, and Williamson did so with 35/10/4 during a 95-91 home loss to Syracuse on Jan. 14, 2019, Carey Jr. is not only the only one of the three to have put up such numbers in a winning effort, but he is also the only one who qualifies for the 31/12/4 club.

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Are there other specific records Carey Jr.’s performance broke but Duke’s stats guys haven’t yet discovered? Probably so. Even if not, though, one glance at his season averages and percentages — 18.0 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.0 blocks, 0.8 steals, 61.8 percent from the field, and 3-for-3 from 3-point land — says enough.

However, for those who want to see more, consider this: per 40 minutes, Carey Jr.’s current averages for points (31.0), rebounds (15.5), and blocks (3.4) exceed each of those final stats from the freshman campaigns of Williamson (30.1, 11.8, 2.4) and Bagley (24.8, 13.1, 1.0) in addition to each of those final stats from the senior campaigns of Battier (22.8, 8.4, 2.6) and Ferry (27.2, 8.9, 0.7).

Now, numbers-wise, though the sample size is relatively small, all those comparisons to Duke basketball legends above ought to be more than enough for folks to at least see just how special Carey Jr. should turn out to be this season.

He and the rest of the Duke basketball team face Georgetown for the 2K Empire Classic title at 7:30 p.m. (ESPN2).

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