Three factors that led to Duke basketball’s loss against Michigan State

Factor No. 2 in Duke basketball loss to MSU: Abysmal 3-point shooting

I thought that this year’s Duke basketball team would be better at shooting than the last couple of teams in Durham. I couldn’t have been more wrong. To be fair, shooting has been down across the entire college basketball landscape. It could be the lack of gym time players have had to get up shots or the weird shooting backgrounds with no fans. Nonetheless, the shooting has been poor.

The Blue Devils shot 5-for-23 against Michigan State, a staggering 21.7 percent. Duke had some decent looks but just couldn’t get anything to drop. A lot of the shots that the squad put up were not even close.

I thought that Duke did a great job early in the game of attacking and putting pressure on MSU’s defense. Later in the first half, the Blue Devils started to settle for jump shots. They stopped driving to the basket and opted for out-of-rhythm long-range shots.

A few times in the second half, Duke attempted some outside shots without moving the ball at all. Missed shots early in the shot-clock make it difficult to get any flow on offense and also puts a ton of pressure on the defense as players are having to scramble to get back in transition…