Duke basketball: Same issues haunting Blue Devils in ugly road loss

The Duke basketball team looked uninterested in its ugly loss to Wake Forest. 

Jon Scheyer and a short handed Duke basketball team got its first taste of ACC life on the road as Wake Forest outplayed, and out-coached, the young and inexperienced Blue Devils.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way, Duke was without Dereck Lively and Dariq Whitehead and, to be expected, is not the same team with the freshmen duo sidelined. This was obvious within the first four minutes as Wake Forest was able to secure multiple offensive rebounds that led to second chance opportunities.

Duke got outplayed from the opening tip and for the first time this season lost to a Wake Forest (9-4, 1-1 ACC) team with much less talent, 81-70.

There is a lot to be concerned about after watching No. 14 Duke (10-3, 1-1 ACC) lose its third game of the season.

First, Duke had not played in over a week and most would expect them to come out feeling refreshed, well rested, and aggressive. Instead, the exact opposite was present.

The Blue Devils were lethargic, committed ugly turnovers, and had no sense of urgency on either side of the ball.

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Jeremy Roach had his worst game since he was a freshman, scoring just nine points on 3-of-7 shooting to go along with five turnovers.

All players are going to have off nights but the bigger issue with Roach is that at no point did he look to be aggressive or try to rally his teammates. As the clear leader of this team an unfair amount of weight and responsibility are on his shoulders, but this team will go as far as he is able to carry them.

Roach’s poor play was compounded by Kyle Filipowski having his worst outing thus far this year.

The walking double-double failed to reach either mark as he also finished with nine points on 4-of-14 and missed all six shots from the 3-point line.

He didn’t look, run, or play like himself which seemed to be a common theme throughout the night for Duke.

Same issues still haunting Duke basketball team

A talking point during this entire season has been how the rotation, or lack thereof, has potential to cause issues for the Blue Devils and if Duke didn’t have it figured out by ACC play then it could leave them exposed.

This coaching staff either cannot come to an agreement on a rotation or simply do not like what they see. Either way, conference play is here and Duke still has not figured out a regular rotation which is alarming.

However, there was one silver lining for the Blue Devils and his name was Jaylen Blakes.

It’s becoming clear that Jon Scheyer is utilizing Blakes as the spark plug for this team in games when they need a boost, and did they ever need that against Wake Forest.

Without 17 points and three 3-pointers from the sophomore, Duke would have lost by at least 20 points.

Duke will not play for another ten days where they will welcome a Florida State team that has really struggled to Cameron Indoor Stadium.

The hope must be that everyone remains healthy and Coach Scheyer implements some old school Coach K practices to wake the team up.