What you saw in the Duke-State game was the difference between an experienced and disciplined team and a young team with real talent but not much understanding of what to do with it.
Make no mistake about it, the Pack has plenty of talent. Yet time and again, they missed easy shots. Time and again they forced things rather than being patient. Too many times, they failed to get the ball to their best player, Tracy Smith, when he had a shot available.
And as we've seen many times this year, C.J. Leslie off often charges in without a plan and forces a bad shot.
Against Boston College, freshman Lorenzo Brown was abused by more experienced players. In this game he wasn't much of a factor at all, failing to score and having no impact on the defense.
In fact, both players and fellow freshman Ryan Harrow were shut out in the first half.
In spite of their mostly self-inflicted problems, State was able to cut significantly into the lead on a couple of occasions. But when they did, the Blue Devils rallied and pulled away again.
It was the difference again between experienced talent and undirected ability.
State tried to do what Florida State and Virginia also tried to do and force Duke's supporting players to beat them.
This might have worked but the supporting players opted not to cooperate.
Andre Dawkins set the tone early with penetration and aggressiveness, Ryan Kelly had one of his better scoring and and didn't miss from the floor,and Seth Curry was solid all around.
And yet in many ways, the story of the game was the story of the Plumlees.
Mason controlled the inside in the first half with five blocked shots early finishing with a total of six. He finished with 10 rebounds and seven points, putting him within hollering distance of a man's triple-double.
And after some disappointing games, Miles was excellent, finishing with 11 points and eight boards.
The brothers finished with 18 points and 18 rebounds, nine of them offensive. That's not bad at all.
As we've seen since the Florida State game, Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler were the heavy focus of the defense. It worked for a while on Singler as the forward had a dismal first half from the floor, but State's inexperienced backcourt could not control Smith, who finished with 22, many of them scored on daring drives.
In the second half, Singler began asserting himself and finished with 18.
With the final seconds ticking off the clock, the camera caught Coach K embracing Miles Plumlee and hitting him enthusiastically on the back of the head.
It was certainly a breakthrough game for the elder Plumlee, and by extension for Duke at large. Because what you saw at State was a very different bunch than we saw against Florida State or Virginia. If they can continue to play like this, they are going to be very difficult to beat.
[poll id="169"]
| Current DBR Auction! |
 |
| The DBR App! |
| The Next Step For DBR |
| DBR Is On Twitter!(DBRTweetz) |