Duke basketball suffers second dose of harsh reality with another loss

Another disappointing effort from the Duke basketball program in the early 2020-21 season.

Same story, different day so far for the Duke basketball team as the Blue Devils suffered their second loss in four efforts on Tuesday night.

The Blue Devils (2-2) already put forth a poor performance last week against No. 8 Michigan State, another Big Ten program, and it was just about the same script against No. 6 Illinois (4-1) in Durham.

Much like the Spartans, the Fighting Illini are a veteran, physical team who entered a Crazie-less Cameron Indoor Stadium and dominated from tipoff to the final horn.

Brad Underwood‘s team jumped out to a 21-8 lead, and each time the Blue Devils tried to throw a counter punch, Illinois had the perfect response, whether it would be a defensive stand or a timely bucket on the offensive end.

Duke never held a lead in the game on its home floor.

Since 2000, the Blue Devils had two non-conference losses at Cameron. They now have two non-conference losses at Cameron within the span of eight days.

Illinois saw six of its seven players who scored all reach double-digits, and Adam Miller, the freshman guard who began the game with three 3-pointers, ended with nine points.

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National Player of the Year candidate Ayo Dosunmu was held in check for a majority of the game by Jordan Goldwire, but the greatness of the junior shined through as he finished with 18 points, 12 rebounds, and five assists on 6-of-11 shooting from the floor.

Reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Year Kofi Cockburn owned the paint with 13 points and eight rebounds and missed a number of easy baskets at the rim, which could have resulted in much more than a 15-point loss for Duke.

Another reason why the Blue Devils only lost 83-68 was the second half play of DJ Steward and Jeremy Roach, who both scored 13 points in the loss.

Steward added two rebounds and two assists to his stat line on 5-of-9 shooting while Roach chipped in four rebounds and seven assists in what was his best game as a Dukie.

Sophomore Matthew Hurt led Duke in scoring once again with 19 points on 8-of-15 shooting, but the Minnesota native didn’t have his 3-point ball working, missing all six of his shots from beyond the arc.

Duke basketball has yet to fix its problems

Through four games, Duke has not impressed whatsoever.

Victories against Coppin State and Bellarmine were too close for comfort, and the final score of its losses to Michigan State and Illinois were not indicative of how the games were played.

As stated after the loss to the Spartans, Duke’s past standouts aren’t coming to save the day.

Tre Jones or Zion Williamson or Vernon Carey Jr. will not magically appear and help carry the Blue Devils to an ACC Championship or a Final Four.

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The 11 scholarship players that Mike Krzyzewski has on his roster are all Duke has this year, and the Hall of Famer is going to have to make things work if the Blue Devils want to get their 2020-21 season off the ground.

Luckily for Duke, it will not have another strong opponent until the turn of the calendar year when the Blue Devils hit the road for the first time this season against Florida State on January 2.

However, Duke returns to the court on Saturday, December 12 against Charleston Southern (1-3) at 2:00pm EST (ACC Network Extra).