Photo credit: Rob Kinnan-USA TODAY Sports
Jon Scheyer Demands One Duke Basketball Forward Get More Touches
Duke basketball is 12-0 this season when Mark Mitchell scores a dozen points or more. Make that 24-1 for his career, in which the program is 11-0 when he finishes with at least 15 points. In other words, heavy doses of buckets from the former five-star McDonald's All-American essentially equate to the Blue Devils coming out on top.
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So, on that note, it should come as no surprise Mitchell's career-high 23 points on Monday night, leading the No. 9 Blue Devils (19-5, 10-3 ACC) to a 77-69 win over unranked Wake Forest (16-8, 8-5 ACC) that completed a 3-0 homestand, prompted second-year Duke head coach Jon Scheyer to sing the sophomore forward's praises.
In doing so, Scheyer referred to his go-to lineup as five guards, despite the "forward" tags on Mitchell and fellow sophomore Kyle Filipowski. And he referenced the need for the 6-foot-9 Mitchell, averaging a career-high 13.1 points and 6.5 rebounds while shooting 54.9 percent from the field, to possess the ball more often:
"We feel we basically play five guards together. Even though 'Flip' is 7 feet, he has a game like a guard...Mark, the same thing: he's a guard. And usually, they have bigs guarding them.
"So, you know, you're able to surround them with shooting. And for those guys to be able to make plays downhill — however you can get it to them there — it changes our team.
"And I said it to our team after last game: Mark needs to touch it more. He just needs to touch it more because good things happen when he touches it. And if it translates to scoring 23 points, then that's great. But it's also going to translate [when] he can have a game where he has seven assists or gets to the foul line even more.
"Those guys [Mitchell and Filipowski] are just so smart for their size and their ball-handling ability. They're special players. And we've got to keep getting them in the right spots.
"The two of them going together makes me happy. I know that much."
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NEXT DUKE BASKETBALL GAME: at unranked Florida State (13-11, 7-6 ACC), 2 p.m. ET Saturday (ESPN)
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