Duke Basketball Star on Black Friday Lethargy: 'No Excuse for It'
Many name-brand programs faced big-time opponents in paradisiacal places like Hawaii and the Bahamas this week. Not Duke basketball.
No, the ninth-ranked Blue Devils (5-1), all but alone on campus as other students were back home relaxing with their families, spent their Thanksgiving break in Durham and wrapped up their uninspiring three-game Blue Devil Challenge slate on Friday night with an 80-62 win over Southern Indiana that felt more like a loss.
On that note, for much of the first half against the visiting Screaming Eagles (1-6) in Cameron Indoor Stadium, Duke looked like it would rather be elsewhere.
It's safe to say the Blue Devils were far from attack mode. Despite their size advantage, they settled for 3-pointers early (1-for-6 from deep before the first media timeout). And they trailed the overwhelming underdogs, 32-22, with four minutes remaining in the half before finally displaying grit to close the gap at 35-31 entering the locker room.
Chalk it up to the dullest portion of the schedule, the absence of students in the stands, and perhaps this Duke team needing a vacation and change of scenery, then brush it all off and move on, right? Wrong.
"We were just slacking off," sophomore forward and reigning ACC Rookie of the Year Kyle Filipowski, who finished with a game-high 21 points, 14 rebounds, and three blocks after scoring only six points and missing seven shots in the first half, told Blue Devil Country on SI.com in the locker room afterward. "No excuse for it."
Fellow sophomore starter Tyrese Proctor, who tallied 11 points and seven assists but had only one dime before the break, also rejected the excuse that this writer tried to offer them.
"I didn't think much of it," the Blue Devils' floor general said about the lack of Thanksgiving break adventure. "I thought it was good for us to just stay together and be a family in Durham."
Meanwhile, second-year Duke basketball head coach Jon Scheyer sounded more upset than in his postgame comments following the Blue Devils' 78-73 home loss to now-No. 3 Arizona on Nov. 10. His Friday night presser was his shortest of the season.
Scheyer, who lost some of his voice by having to raise it more often than he probably expected to throughout the contest, came across as highly disappointed yet undoubtedly relieved that his mid-game tweaks at least paid off in terms of avoiding what would have gone down as the worst upset loss at home in program history.
"We needed a jolt," Scheyer noted about finally employing a full-court press to ignite the fire in his squad by requiring a ramped-up effort on defense. "We needed some energy...We just needed something different."
They'll need that energy next week, as they have a chance to turn the wake-up call into a statement performance in primetime.
"Everything happens for a reason," Proctor explained. "It's not ideal how we started. The results are the results. It's a win at the end of the day. But we're trying to get better every day. And I thought we took a step back today.
"I think it's just about learning and building and getting ready for Arkansas, which is going to be a crazy environment and one of our toughest games."
The Blue Devils travel to Fayetteville to battle the No. 20 Razorbacks, who fell to 4-3 on Friday via their 87-72 loss to UNC at the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas, on Wednesday at 9:15 p.m. ET as part of the inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge.
Stay tuned to Blue Devil Country on SI.com for more Duke basketball news.
