Stock down from No. 1 Duke’s historic loss to Stephen F. Austin

Mike Krzyzewski

Tuesday night was not one of Mike Krzyzewski‘s finest two and a half hours as the head coach of the Duke Blue Devils.

Struggling to match the intensity of the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks, Krzyzewski didn’t look to his bench much in the second half, rolling with those who he had on the floor, in addition to Jack White.

One of the more curious decisions in the game was not calling a timeout after Wendell Moore secured an offensive rebound during the last possession of overtime which resulted in a turnover and the game-winning basket from the Lumberjacks. Calling a timeout also would have allowed Krzyzewski to put Vernon Carey Jr. back in the game for the final possession, as the freshman had been Duke’s best player on the night.

While Coach K said after the game that the team did not respond to anything he or the coaching staff said during the game, it’s still on him to find ways to get to his team in close games.

Now did the players think this could have been an easy victory and already looking forward to Thanksgiving? Maybe. But then it’s the coach’s job to refocus his team and get them ready to play.

It was no secret that Duke had flaws coming into this season and those were exposed in the previous games, but winning masks your flaws and now with an embarrassing loss it’s up to the five-time National Champion to fix the flaws and correct the mistakes.

Tre Jones

Uncharacteristically, Tre Jones played his worst game of the season by far and perhaps his worst game as a Duke Blue Devil on Tuesday night.

Despite his first career double-double with 17 points and 12 assists, the sophomore point guard had eight turnovers.

Jones was 4-of-10 from the floor, 2-of-4 from 3-point range, and 7-of-10 from the free throw line but questionable clock management at the end of regulation and overtime ultimately gave Stephen F. Austin a chance to win the game at the buzzer.

Tre Jones returned to Duke for a reason and you know a loss at home to Stephen F. Austin will not sit well with him, nor should it. Expect the guard and captain to bounce back in a major way.

Free-Throw Shooting

I’ve wrote about free throw shooting last season and this season and I will continue to write about it until I’m blue in the face.

I said free-throw shooting would ultimately come back to haunt Duke last year, and it did. I said it would come back to hurt Duke this season, and it has. I did not expect it to come back to bite Duke in late-November against Stephen F. Austin, but alas, here we are.

The Blue Devils were 24-of-40 from the free throw line and that’s not good enough to beat any college basketball team in the country.

On the season Duke is just shooting 66.4% from the free throw line and there is some skill that goes into shooting free throws in terms of from, relaxing, etc. that the coaches can fix, but it comes down to the players putting the time in.

Seven players attempted free throws on Tuesday night for the Blue Devils, and six players missed at least one free throw. Matthew Hurt was the only player who did not miss a free throw, going 4-for-4.

Vernon Carey Jr. struggled the most at the charity stripe only going 4-for-11 on the heels of going 4-of-10 against Georgetown but making 8-of-9 against California.

Going forward for Duke; Get mad. Get angry. Use this loss at motivation for the rest of the season and certainly don’t look past Winthrop to the battle against Michigan State on the road next week.