ACC tournament preview: Pittsburgh vs. No. 21 Duke

It was a generic and open-ended question that received a likewise answer from Duke’s Ryan Young.

“I think it’s pretty open right now, there are a lot of good teams and a lot of people playing their best basketball right now,” Duke’s grad transfer center said.

He’s not necessarily wrong … and yet, it feels like he’s underselling his team with that.

Duke enters the postseason riding a six-game winning streak, the hottest team in the ACC and tied for the second-longest winning streak of any Power 6 conference team. It’s worth noting, too, that Duke’s last loss was on the road at Virginia in overtime—in which the ACC admitted fault that Kyle Filipowski should’ve been shooting free throws at the end of regulation.

Shortly after that was when Duke’s winning streak began; that loss and the seven others that preceded it are equal parts of why the Blue Devils are peaking at the right time.

“I truly don’t think you can get to the maximum, the best potential of your team, if you don’t go through that stuff,” first-year coach Jon Scheyer said. “Do you like to lose? No. Do you like to not play as well? No.

“But it does teach you what you can and can’t do.”

The injuries to overcome were part of this equation, too. Dariq Whitehead, the No. 1 overall recruit, missed virtually all of the preseason, and looked to be revving up to full speed before his late January injury resulted in him missing four games.

His roommate, freshman center Dereck Lively II was slow to gain traction because of a preseason injury of his own. Junior guard Jeremy Roach, the lone returner who played significant minutes last season, played through a toe injury that eventually required him to miss three games — one of those absences coming in the only meeting between Duke and Pittsburgh, the Blue Devils’ quarterfinal opponent in the ACC tournament on Thursday.

Through it all, Duke has treaded water — never feeling like missing the NCAA tournament was likely, yet never climbing back into the AP top 25 until this week — before this late-season surge.

Scheyer isn’t, by nature, a patient person; so it’s not patience that was required, but something similar.

“I think it takes perspective, and probably poise,” Scheyer said. “That’s, for me, whether it be playing or coaching, I’ve prided myself on those things. I don’t know if I was patient, if we’d be in this spot. … I don’t think anyone would be at Duke if they were patient.”

There’s certainly no time for patience now, with Duke entering its first postseason under Scheyer.

If the last three weeks are any indication, the Blue Devils will have plenty of patience and poise moving forward.

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Here’s what to know ahead of Thursday’s quarterfinal ACC tournament game:

Time: 2:30 p.m.

Location: Greensboro Coliseum.

TV: ESPN or ESPN2.

Series; last meeting: Duke leads 15-8; Duke won 77-69 on Jan. 11, this season’s only meeting.

Records: Pittsburgh 22-10; Duke 23-8.

Moving forward: The winner will play the winner of Thursday’s earlier game, top-seeded Miami or ninth-seeded Wake Forest, in the first semifinal on Friday night. That game will start at 7 p.m. and be shown on ESPN or ESPN2.

Stat to watch: 6-for-22 | 30.6%.

The first number is what Pitt shot on 3-pointers against Duke two months ago; the second is Duke’s 3-point defense, which is 25th in the country (per KenPom as of Wednesday night).

Pitt put up that 27.3% performance against Duke and followed it up with a 6-for-20 clip in a win over Georgia Tech back in February.

Since then — and in a lot of games before then — the Panthers have blitzed teams from beyond the arc.

Pitt made double-digit 3s in seven of the last 13 games in the regular season. Blake Hinson (90 of 233, 38.6%) and Greg Elliott (74 of 175, 42.3%) are the main threats, though Nelly Cummings (56) and Nike Sibande (36) have also made more than one 3-pointer per game.

The Panthers were 7-for-16 against Georgia Tech on Wednesday, feeding center Federiko Federiko for 19 points on 7-for-7 shooting (his most points since mid-December) and getting 21 points on 10-for-15 shooting by Jamarius Burton.

On Duke’s side of things, this is where it benefits the Blue Devils (again) that an opposing offense’s strength is what they’re constructed to take away.

The last time Duke gave up double-digit 3-pointers was the Jan. 23 loss at Virginia Tech, when the Hokies were 10-for-19. In the 11 games since then, opponents have made less than 30% of their 3s in seven games against Duke.

The Blue Devils’ length, plus Lively’s ability to switch onto guards and defend on the perimeter, has turned them into a team that doesn’t give up a bunch of 3s.

One of the first games in which Lively’s defensive potential came into focus was the first meeting against Pitt, when his play against the Panthers’ backcourt in the second half helped the Blue Devils overcome a 12-point deficit.

Matchup to watch: Pitt’s Blake Hinson (No. 2) vs. Duke’s Kyle Filipowski (No. 30).

Hinson and Filipowski were both second-team All-ACC picks and should spend a considerable amount of time matched up against each other on Thursday.

The rookie of the year had quite the advantage in the previous matchup.

Filipowski had a monstruous 28-point, 15-rebound game back in January, the first of his four 20-point games this season. He was 8-for-14 from the field and made 11 of 13 free throws — both of those marking season-highs at the free-throw line.

The 7-footer is coming off a 22-point, 13-rebound game at UNC. Since his scoreless game in the loss at Virginia, Filipowski is averaging 15.7 points and 9.0 rebounds per game.

Hinson didn’t have that good of a game — 10 points on 3-for-8 shooting, three rebounds — when these teams met in the regular season.

Panther to watch: Guard Jamarius Burton (No. 11).

Pitt’s first-team All-ACC selection played like one to open the tournament.

Burton had 21 points and eight assists against Georgia Tech, taking command of a game that hung in the balance through a furious Yellow Jackets rally in the second half.

His 21 points on Wednesday was the most he’s scored in a game since the one before these teams’ first meeting, when he had 28 in a home loss to Clemson. Duke held him to 16 points on 7-for-17 shooting and squeezed five turnovers out of him.

Blue Devil to watch: Guard Tyrese Proctor (No. 5).

It’s hard to find somebody who’s taken more positive developmental steps forward than Proctor since the beginning of the season.

Proctor went from defensive liability in the first month of the season to Duke’s best on-ball defender. He’s become the primary ball-handler, along with hitting 26 of his 38 3-pointers in the last half of the season.

“I thought after the Miami game at Miami was a pretty big jump,” Proctor said of his development. “Obviously we went down pretty bad and just reevaluated with the team and stuff like that.”

Devils Illustrated prognosis: This will be a hard-fought, drag-em-out game.

Pitt needs a win to feel secure in its NCAA tournament status. Pitt also had the Blue Devils on the ropes in Durham before Duke’s second-half surge.

Those run up against Duke being one of the hottest teams in the country, having finally found a groove and maturity that you knew was within grasp in the first three months of the season.

Should make for a compelling game.