Sunday in Raleigh, the Duke basketball team's march to a sixth National Championship rolled on as the Blue Devils dismantled Baylor 89-66 to advance to the Sweet 16. It marks the second year in a row that Jon Scheyer has been able to get his program to the second week of the NCAA Tournament.
Tyrese Proctor had arguably his best game of his college career scoring 25 points on 9 of 10 shooting. He was 7 of 8 from 3-point range as he lit up the Bears, especially in the second half. In addition, he had two assits, a rebound, and only one turnover.
It was a third-straight dominant game for the junior guard who scored 19 points in both the ACC Tournament Championship Game win over Louisville and the first-round NCAA Tournament win over Mount St. Mary's.
Meanwhile, Cooper Flagg was able to pour in 18 points despite being 5-11 from the floor and 1-4 from 3-point range. Interestingly, though, he impacted the games in other ways by grabbing nine rebounds and handing out six assists.
As a team, Duke had its way with a Baylor team that has struggled defensively all season. The Devils shot 64.4% from the field as a team while going 12-22 (54.5%) from 3-point range.
Now, the Blue Devils march on to the third round where they will face either Oregon or Arizona in Newark, New Jersey for a trip to the Elite 8. But before we turn our full attention to what's next, here are a few quick thoughts on the latest March Madness Duke domination.
Duke takes over the Baylor's best player picks up third foul
This game was actually competitive for most of the first half. In fact, the two teams traded blows and swapped the lead several times in the opening ten minutes.
But with 5:33 to go in the first half, Baylor's best player, forward Norchad Omier, picked up his third foul and was forced to head to the bench. At that point, the score was 28-24 in favor of Duke.
With Omier out of action for the rest of the first half, Baylor fell apart and Duke took advantage. The Blue Devils finished the half on a 19-6 run to take a 47-30 lead into the locker room.
After that, Omier was a non-factor because Baylor was taken out of its game plan of trying to be physical in the post with its best player. Omier, who averages 15.8 points and 10.9 rebounds per game, was on pace for a big game early with the first six points that Baylor scored. But once he picked up his first-half fouls, he was unable to help his team and though he would finish with 15 points and 9 boards, and by the time he came back onto the court after his third foul, the game was essentially over.
Duke was the more aggressive team and it showed at the line
The Blue Devils dominated this game in another statistical category, free throws. That was a sign that Duke was the much more aggressive team.
For the game, Duke was magnificent at the line going 19-23 (82.6%) as a team. Meanwhile, Baylor was just 8-10 (80%).
Flagg was the catalyst in this area of the game. He went to the line a game-high nine times, making seven.
Meanwhile, freshman forward Patrick Ngongba II was second on the team going 6-6 at the foul line. Considering that he entered the game shooting just 68.2% from the line, that was an impressive performance from him.
Any time Duke makes 12 3-pointers and 19 free throws in a game, the opposition is in for a long day. That's what happened on Sunday and it was far too much for Baylor to overcome.
Former Duke guard Jeremy Roach struggles
Finally, there was no chance for former Duke point guard, Jeremy Roach, to play the role of spolier against his old team. In fact, the senior struggled in this game with only seven points on 3-10 shooting with three rebounds and one assist.
This year, Roach started 18 games for Baylor but he came off the bench on Sunday. Though he had as much NCAA Tournament experience as any player on the Bears' roster, he was replaced in the starting lineup by true freshman Rob Wright III.
Entering the game, Roach, who played four years in Durham before leaving for Waco last offseason, had averaged 10.1 points but only 2.6 assists per game. Thus, it was probably for the best that Duke let him walk away given all the talent the Blue Devils have in the backcourt this year. And when facing Roach in the NCAA Tournament, it was clear why Duke knew it had an upgrade at the point guard position heading into this season. That was evident on Sunday when Proctor went wild while Roach was an afterthought.