Duke basketball (15-2, 7-0 ACC) cruised past the Miami Hurricanes (4-13, 0-6 ACC) in Cameron on Tuesday night winning 89-54 for the Blue Devils' 11th straight win.
Miami didn't hang in the game for very long as Duke was red hot from beyond the arc. As ACC play continues, the Blue Devils seem to get more consistent and lethal from three point range.
Duke made 11 threes in the first half going 11-of-17 (64.7%) and shot 17-of-32 from three for the game (53.1%). Six different Blue Devils hit a three as well.
The absence of forward Maliq Brown did't set the Blue Devils back one bit on either side of the floor, and the outside shooting is continuing to get better for the entire squad.
Freshman Kon Knueppel led the way for the Blue Devils in the scoring column, finishing the win with a game-high and career-high 25 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the field and 6-of-8 shooting from three point range.
After major struggles with consistency during the early part of the regular season, Knueppel has found his groove as of late and is developing into one of the best shooters in the ACC.
Knueppel talked earlier in the season about how this was the worst slump of his life in terms of shooting.
Through the first 11 games of the season, Knueppel was just 20-of-62 (32.3%) from the perimeter and those numbers drop to 4-of-23 (17.4%) from three in Duke's four non-conference games against ranked opponents.
The freshman was praised for his shooting ability in the preseason and was expected to be this team's sharpshooter from the get-go. That didn't really happen early on, but Knueppel is finding his rhythm.
Over his last 6 games, Knueppel is 21-of-45 (46.6%) from three and has hit at least two three point shots in all of those games. He's now 5th in the ACC in three pointers made per game (2.4).
Jon Scheyer has continued to run action to get Knueppel an outside shot off the catch which is where he gets a lot of his makes. Pin downs, finding him as the trailer in transition, or finding him when he leaks out to a corner, his presence has felt a lot more known as of late.
"Keep the same routine," Knueppel said postgame. "Shots are going to fall."
Knueppel has officially emerged as one of the best shooters in the ACC after somewhat going under the radar early in the season, and his consistency will continue to be a huge part of this Blue Devils offense.
Duke hits the road next to take on Boston College (9-8, 1-5 ACC) on January 18th (8:00pm ET, ESPN).