Duke Downs New Mexico State, 86-61
Although most of the excitement early this season has been about the freshmen and a healthy Gerald Henderson, the rest of Duke’s team isn’t exactly chopped liver. So it’s not a big surprise that the two guys who perhaps had the most success against New Mexico State are two of the three most criticized guys on the team.
Jon Scheyer came off the bench to score 22 points on 8-11 shooting, and Greg Paulus had a tremendous game at point guard.
Despite coming off the bench, Scheyer is leading the team in minutes and has to be one of the team leaders in smart plays, because he keeps doing smart things. Whether it’s the right time to take a shot, poking the ball loose, or blocking someone else’s shot, Scheyer usually seems ready. Being the sixth man could actually become a great role for him.
And as for Paulus, for at least part of the game, he was like an unholy love child of Bobby Hurley and Wojo.
He ran the break like Hurley and led with panache. What’s more, he showed he could bring his teammates up to a higher level. Whether it was driving and scoring, popping a three, stealing a ball, or diving on the floor for any little excuse for a floorburn, Paulus did it. He had, in our opinion, his best game since Gonzaga last year, where he was similarly an inspirational leader.
It’s a good thing they did play so well, because at least offensively, their teammates weren’t quite as successful. While Scheyer shot very well, and Paulus was 4-6, and DeMarcus Nelson 5-8, it fell off rather sharply after that: Kyle Singler was 3-7 (missing all three treys), Gerald Henderson was 5-12, Nolan Smith was 1-6, and Taylor King was 2-8.
Despite losing by 25, NMSU is not a bad team. You have to remember that they are missing stud freshman forward Herb Pope and a guard, both awaiting the approval of the NCAA’s academic clearinghouse. And they are still getting used to new coach Marvin Menzies.
Presumably as a Rick Pitino disciple, Menzies would prefer to run and press, but he doesn’t have the personnel, either number wise or talent wise, to do that right now.
But in spite of these problems, New Mexico State has some potential and played smart at spots in this game. They worked the ball inside to the big men on a regular basis to take advantage of Duke’s lack of size.
When Duke had a 30 point lead, they cut it to 19 in fairly short order, and were playing well enough to stage a bigger rally, forcing Coach K to take a timeout to talk to his team.
This is a team with potential. Yes, Duke took them out, but it wasn’t as easy as it looked.
Of course, the Aggies didn’t help themselves by coughing the ball up on a regular basis. They let it go 26 times, and several of those ended up in the bleachers, untouched.
Of the players present, not everyone is suited to the sort of game Menzies would presumably prefer.
They shot 45.5% to Duke’s 47.8%. Justin Hawkins shot 7-16 for 16 points, and also grabbed 11 boards.
This was a smart and capable team, but one which was limited by the missing players, and later, by foul troubles. But they hung around and gave Duke some trouble and clearly never quit.
They also made it a point to try and slow Duke down, zoning a lot and trying to negate Duke’s running advantage.
It worked to an extent, and other teams are going to follow their example until Duke figures it out.
They also did a pretty good job of shoving the ball straight down the middle at times, taking advantage of their superior size.
But Duke, behind the tremendous play of Scheyer and Paulus, who set a brilliant tone, showed a lot too.
Though the freshmen didn’t play all that well, the team as a whole did some things very well. They were ferocious on defense at times – all those passes that went untouched to the Crazies didn’t happen by accident. Duke pushed them on defense and harassed them tremendously.
A word for the third most criticized member of the team, big man Brian Zoubek: he came in and did exactly what he was asked to do, mainly to counter the size the Aggies had inside, and he changed the game by making it much more difficult for New Mexico State to score down low. He played a key but understated role in the game.
But New Mexico State made something pretty clear: Duke can win a lot this year, but if they want to do it, they’ll have to keep moving. This is a fast, agile team, capable of really moving fast. But in a half-court,
grind it out game, without being able to take advantage of their speed, Duke
will be in trouble.