NEW YORK – Just call it the Ryan Young Game.
One day, when he’s old and gray and has a starting lineup full of grandkids over the house, the Duke graduate student center will be able to tell the young’uns about the night he helped the Blue Devils win a huge December game at their home away from home, Madison Square Garden.
In a tight game with No.10 Baylor with seven minutes to go in the second half, Duke star Kyle Filipowski picked up his fourth foul. The score was tied, and the sophomore went to the bench. Most of the pro-Duke crowd groaned at the call, because they figured it was a huge blow to the Devils to have Filipowski on the bench.
Only, Ryan Young then entered and played maybe the best five minutes he’s played while in Durham. Young’s defensive intensity, passing and rebounding helped Duke to a 9-2 run over the next two minutes that propelled the Blue Devils to a 78-70 win.
It was the seventh straight win at MSG for No. 21 Duke (8-3), and was its best victory of the year by far, especially considering Tyrese Proctor is still out of the lineup.
“Flip should be buying Ryan dinner for what he did down the stretch,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “To do it in this fashion, at this moment, for Ryan, there’s no question, it’s as big a moment as he’s had here. He was great tonight.”
In the first game all season Duke placed all five starters in double figures, the outcome was very much in doubt when Filipowski picked up his fourth.
But after Ja’Kobe Walter’s two free throws tied it, Young showed his veteran smarts. He made a layup with 5:37 left, putting Duke up 2 (it was also Young’s 1,000th career point), then grabbed two rebounds while playing strong interior defense against Baylor’s Jalen Bridges and Yves Missi.
Young made the play of the game on the offensive end with 4:04 left. Taking the ball at the top of the key, Young seemed to have a clear path to an easy layup.
After driving toward the rim he deftly flipped a pass to Jared McCain (a career-high-tying 21 points) on the right wing. Trading a sure two for a possible three turned out to be a great decision, as McCain swished the jumper to put Duke up 68-61, and send the sellout MSG crowd into a frenzy.
“I knew the corner man would either help off me or stay, and he tried to help,” McCain said with a big smile. “We work hard on sharing the ball offensively and I was able to capitalize.”
Armed with a 7-point lead, Duke salted the game away, with Young making two more free throws to stretch the lead to nine, and Young finished his impact minutes with a steal.
When Filipowski came back in with 3:28 left, the Blue Devils had an eight-point lead, and the Duke fans gave Young a standing ovation. It may have been the most impactful four-point, two-rebound effort in Blue Devil history.
While Young was terrific, it was a team effort at the Garden: The Blue Devils did so many things better Wednesday than they had in their three losses; they continued to take care of the ball well (only eight turnovers), but defensively were much better at crunch time, and played the bigger, more athletic Bears team even in rebounds (the final board numbers were 30-29, Baylor).
“We were more mentally tough down the stretch, that’s what our program has been about,” Scheyer said.
And defensively, Duke’s defense held Walter without a FG for the final 10:12 of the game. Walter scored only five points in the first half, and was hounded by McCain, Jeremy Roach and Caleb Foster (12 points) much of the night.
“He got some open looks off some under out of bounds plays, some miscommunication by us,” Roach said. “We knew if we just trailed him off the screens, and played him one on one, that would be our best bet. You’ve got to take his looks away, and me and Jared did a great job of that the last 10-15 minutes.”
The Blue Devils also stayed out of foul trouble (only Filipowski was a concern in that area) and got big-time efforts from the freshman duo of McCain and Foster.
Like all freshmen, they’ve had good games and rough games as rookies, but Wednesday each seized moments. Foster had a terrific few minutes in the second half, started by a driving layup that put Duke up 55-54 at the 9:43 mark, and two minutes later again aggressively drove and sank a left-handed layup. Two free throws followed soon after.
And McCain, in addition to the dagger 3 he hit off the Young assist, was decisive in scoring 11 first half points, and draining two big 3’s after the break.
“For Jared and Caleb to be in this kind of environment, at this incredible arena, and have the games that they did, is such a great experience for them,” Scheyer said. “They competed on both ends and played their butts off.”
And Roach continued his fantastic season so far, calmly bringing Duke back from a six-point second-half deficit. Roach finished with 18 points, three rebounds and three assists, while committing only one turnover.
The solid overall performance is certainly a resume-builder for Duke, and should at least for a few days, quiet the loud critics who have bemoaned the Blue Devils not quite living up their preseason hype so far.
“College basketball can be so up and down,” Scheyer said. “Jared’s learned early on, the reaction people can have to Duke losing. We had two wins earlier that we didn’t finish, we left those two wins there. And there are make or break points in the season, and these last few weeks, Jeremy has stepped up and said ‘Hey, it’s not going down this way,’ and gotten us back on track.”
Duke also excelled from the foul line Wednesday, making 24 of 29.
