DURHAM, N.C. -- Army (5-1) gave No. 4 Duke (7-0) all it could handle on Sunday, but ultimately the Blue Devils were more talented than the Black Knights and won by a final of 93-73. Still, it was an opponent that pushed Duke as much as any no-name opponent has this year, and it was a very good experience for the young Blue Devils.
1. Mike Krzyzewski is 39 years removed from his first season as a head coach at Army, but in a lot of ways, he never left
Krzyzewski is 10 wins away from 1,000 wins as a head coach, and he's already college basketball's all-time leader in wins. He began his record-breaking basketball career at the college level as first a player and then a coach at Army, though, and as he shook hands with the Army players after the game, he said that he couldn't help but think to himself, "That was me."
He got emotional talking about the experience after the game.
"I wear my wedding ring and I wear my West Point ring with a Duke stone. I love West Point. I love the fact that I had that opportunity, and then I had an opportunity to coach there," Krzyzewski said. "One of the reasons that I'm a good coach here is because of my five years there. They'll always be in my heart and I'll always be a West Pointer."
And his alma mater did him proud, as the Black Knights gave Duke quite a run. They press full-court, get up and down the floor in transition, share the ball well and shoot reasonably well from 3-point range. If that sounds familiar, it was to Duke as well.
"It kind of looked like us, to be honest. They press like us and they're obviously in great shape," Duke sophomore Matt Jones said. "So it was definitely fun. But at the same time, it makes you speed up sometimes and obviously you've got to make the right play. It was fun, and it was kind of like, 'Ugh.'"
Duke's transition defense wasn't at its best, but the Blue Devils really struggled with the backdoor cuts that Army ran in the halfcourt offense. Kyle Wilson had 17 points at half as Army stayed within 10-13 points for much of the first 30 minutes or so, never really letting Duke run away until the 13-minute mark.
Army was ranked 156th in statistician Ken Pomeroy's efficiency rankings entering the game, and the Black Knights should rise after this. For the sake of perspective, Duke will only play two teams ranked lower than Army in Pomeroy's rankings the rest of the season (Elon and Virginia Tech). Krzyzewski didn't play his alma mater to do anyone a favor, even though he calls head coach Zach Spiker a friend.
"I told my guys, I said, 'Look, this isn't about me playing my alma mater or whatever, like we're being nice to them. This is a really good basketball team. This is an NCAA basketball team.' My feeling is they've got a chance to be an NCAA team, and they'll be one of the best non-conference games that we have," Krzyzewski said.
And he had a moment of pride, a visible one, in the postgame, reflecting on not only the grit that his alma mater showed but how proud he was of his own team.
"I'm so damn happy for them, because you can see certain things on tape but until you experience it and you see their grit and their camaraderie, and I see that in my team. Don't get me wrong. It's not like they cornered the market on it. But we're developing it with a young team, and I think playing against them, that helps us."
2. When Duke needs a bucket, they're going to go to Jahlil Okafor
The nation's No. 1 recruit continues to be excellent, averaging 17.2 points per game on nearly 65 percent shooting and adding 7.8 rebounds, two assists and 1.7 blocks. In the last two games alone, he's averaging 22.5 points in just 20.5 minutes, making 20 of his 28 field goal attempts.
He didn't get anything easily against Army, but when Duke needed to break the game open, he delivered.
Army cut it to 58-47 with 13:16 to go before OKafor went on a personal 5-0 run to stretch it out to 16. When his teammates got going and just like that, Duke was up by 21.
"He was deeper in the post than he had been," Krzyzewski said. "It's more him working at it than what we're doing. We had two out-of-bounds plays under that we haven't used for awhile that he got two dunks on, and then all of a sudden, that juiced it up. Every once in awhile when you can call a guy's number and have something -- it can get you, maybe a spurt. I thought he had it and it excited everybody because they're monstrous dunks. They're pretty good plays."
It also helped that teammate and fellow freshman Tyus Jones started to knock down some shots. He had a team-high 13 points at halftime and finished with 16 (to go along with 10 assists and zero turnovers) on 4 of 8 shooting after he'd been in a bit of a slump.
That just creates more room for Okafor to operate, Krzyzewski said.
"We talked to him a lot about shooting the ball, because there's so much attention to (Okafor) that he's going to get shots. But then what we're trying to do, we've added in practice a couple ball screens for him because he's really good in the ball screen," Krzyzewski said. "He and the ball screen is very good because he knows how to maneuver it, and not just for his shot. He played a great game this afternoon."
3. Duke might have shown some cracks defensively
Army's a team that executes as well as anyone on the offensive end, but Duke's going to see plenty of that kind of disciplined, tricky offense on Wednesday night at Wisconsin as part of the ACC-Big 10 Challenge. The Blue Devils struggled to shut down Army's offense, which is as much a credit to Army and what they do as it was a bit of a red flag for Duke.
"That was a tough game. With the backdoors, and just the offense, it was definitely -- it was frustrating at times, being backdoored like that," Jones said. "But as a team, it was just fun to be able to bounce back, come in with five guys and bring energy. Ultimately, we found a way to slow them down. We didn't really stop them, but we slowed them down just enough."
Jones guarded Wilson for plenty of the second half, and while Duke held him to just two second-half points, it wasn't easy.
"He's in great shape. They screen a lot for him. They have a great offense over there with the backdoors and things like that," Jones said. "Their offense isn't predictable, so you don't know what's to come. You're just basically guessing out there. In the first half, he was guessing better than we were. Obviously, we honed in better and we won the game so it was fun."
Duke had some issues with foul trouble, and Krzyzewski said that's the reason they stopped pressing full-court as much as they have before. Army's point guard Dylan Cox finished with 11 points, six assists and no turnovers in 28 minutes.
"We stopped picking them up when we got into some foul trouble. We just didn't want to put them on the line," Krzyzewski said. "The other kid who's really good is (Dylan) Cox for them. He had six assists, no turnovers, tough kid. When they got down by about 20, he just said, no, we're not going to stop today. And he just motored it down our throats about three times. I could not be more impressed with them."
17: Duke has an athleticism and size advantage against a team like Army, and that showed itself in the 17 offensive boards that Duke collected and turned into 20 second-chance points. That was a big difference in the game.
100: Duke big man Marshall Plumlee shot just 35.3 percent from the foul line last year. He's a perfect 100 percent (10 of 10) this year so far, but he says he hasn't done anything all that different, technically speaking.
"I feel like I'm more relaxed at the line (this year) and I know what I need to do. In years past, I think it was more of a mental thing. In practice, I could make them all day but I would get in the game and you get on the line and you get a little nervous, but not this year."
"Sometimes when you say a team plays hard, it's like saying Barry just has a good personality. I'm not saying that Barry's a good-looking guy, strong and talented and whatever. In your case, (Barry), you have a hell of a personality. But (Army) not only (has) a personality, they're good. I think they're really good." -- Krzyzewski having a little back-and-forth with longtime ACC writer Barry Jacobs
"He doesn't define himself by scoring. I don't think it impacted him that much. Maybe more on us, because we're saying 'Boy, if you shoot like that then they're going to play off Amile (Jefferson), they're going to play off you and there's not going to be much room'. His ego is not defined by shooting, which is uncommon for most. It's really uncommon in today's day and age. Most kids define themselves (by) if they hit a shot. It's how his team's playing and in that way, he's pretty mature." -- Krzyzewski on Tyus Jones
