University of North Carolina Athletics
Know Your Opponent: Duke
February 9, 2017 | Men's Basketball
Duke (GoDuke.com)
Location: Durham, N.C.
Rankings: DU - No. 15 KenPom, No. 18 AP; UNC - No. 11 KenPom, No. 8 AP
Records: DU - 18-5, 6-4 ACC; UNC - 21-4, 9-2 ACC
Carolina Series History (Last Meeting): UNC leads 134-108 (UNC 76, Duke 72, March 5, 2016, Cameron Indoor Stadium)
Duke's wild and crazy January grabbed plenty of headlines, but the successful navigation of a Saturday-Monday road sweep to end the month has quietly stabilized the Blue Devils ahead of Thursday's first installment of the best rivalry in sports.
If not for the stunning home loss to NC State on Jan. 23, Duke's season to date would look a lot like Carolina's. High-profile, thrilling neutral site loss in non-conference? Check. Disappointing loss in ACC opener on the road? Check. Lackluster performance in the state of Florida? Check. Duke's only other loss can certainly be forgiven, as a full-strength Louisville squad at the Yum! might be the best team in the country.
So what does it all mean tonight at Cameron? Let's start with what we definitely know. As expected, a senior and a non-freshman sharpshooter have been the cornerstones for Duke this season. What we didn't expect is that those cornerstones would be Matt Jones and Luke Kennard instead of Amile Jefferson and Grayson Allen. That's not to say Jefferson and Allen haven't been great at times, but in a season with so much instability, Jones and Kennard have been steadying influences.
Kennard has been the breakout star for the Blue Devils in his sophomore season. He was plenty efficient as a freshman, leading the ACC in turnover rate and finishing with the third-best KenPom O-rating in conference play. But he was just a 32-percent shooter from the outside last year despite launching 172 3-point attempts, so his impact was perhaps overlooked. Not the case this year, however. Kennard is making almost 46 percent of his 3s overall and 51 percent in league play, and he's on the short list of ACC Player of the Year candidates, a stunning rise for a player who was largely forgotten about in the preseason assessment of Mike Krzyzewski's club. Kennard's no slouch at getting to the rim, either - he's taken more 2s than anyone on the roster and is making 58 percent of them.
Jones is Coach K's best perimeter defender and he ranks fourth in the ACC in steals per game. He is also a co-captain who rarely leaves the floor, especially against top competition. In eight games against KenPom Tier-A foes (roughly the top 50, adjusted for location), Jones has played 94.7 percent of the available minutes, though he did play a season-low 14 minutes against Pitt last Saturday.
Of Duke's three freshmen who are in the regular rotation, combo guard Frank Jackson had the biggest early impact, as classmates Harry Giles and Jayson Tatum missed time returning from injuries. While Giles is still being slowly integrated into the Duke lineup (just under 14 minutes per game in ACC play), Tatum has emerged as the young star everyone expected. He is the only Blue Devil to start all 10 conference contests and he's been almost as adept at getting to the line as Allen and Kennard. All three players make better than 80 percent of their free throws, so keeping Duke off the charity stripe is a must.
Despite missing two games in January with an injury to the same foot that cost him most of 2016, Jefferson continues to be Duke's best interior threat. He's made 60 percent of his 2s on the year and is the Blue Devils' most consistent rebounder (though Giles could have something to say about that if he ever gets up to full strength).
While rebounding is still not an overwhelming strength for Duke, the return of Jefferson and the addition of Giles has helped them return to the league average a year after the Blue Devils had their worst yearly defensive rebounding numbers in a decade. They were last in the ACC and 330th nationally in opponent OR% in 2016 (perhaps you may recall UNC grabbing 27 of 48 misses in last year's 76-72 win at Cameron). This year they rank 80th nationally and seventh in the league through 10 games.
The X-factor Thursday in Durham is, of course, Allen. The preseason ACC Player of the Year has made just 34 percent of his 3s and 48 percent of his 2s. But as he showed late in recent wins over Wake and Pitt (5 of 11 from 3 in both), he can get hot with the best of them. He played all 40 minutes and finished with 21 points, six boards and six assists in last Saturday's 72-64 home win over the Panthers. On the flip side, he was 1 of 9 from deep in the loss to NCSU on Jan. 23. Which version of Allen will show up against Carolina? That answer figures to go a long way in deciding the winner Thursday.
