Duke heats up, runs away from Syracuse

DURHAM – Law of averages is one thing.

Going 0-for-9 on 3-pointers in one half of basketball and 8-for-8 in the next is taking it to an extreme.

That was Duke’s plight Tuesday night, missing everything in the first half and unable to miss in the second half of an 86-66 win over Syracuse at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

It’s the most made 3s without a miss in a half in program history, and it’s the first time Duke has ever gone from 0-fer in the first half to perfect in the second.

Jon Scheyer made mention of the first-half number at halftime and it drew a simple response from Duke’s freshman sharpshooter.

“He came in at halftime and said we were 0-for-9. I was like, ‘Oh, damn,’” said Jared McCain, who poured in 18 points and made four 3s. “Locked in real quick.”

It started quick enough.

Duke (10-3, 1-1 ACC) was only up two at halftime. Consider the Blue Devils’ first four possessions of the second half a mission-accomplished burst of things that didn’t happen in the first half:

- Mark Mitchell fired a pass to McCain on the wing and he made Duke’s first 3-pointer of the game.

- Kyle Filipowski scored through a low-post move for his first points of the game, having sat for the bulk of the first half with two fouls.

- Filipowski getting the ball in the post again, dishing to Mitchell for a dunk, putting the sophomore at 20 points after his to-the-rescue first half.

- Filipowski scoring again through the post.

That set the tone for a half in which Duke’s offensive efficiency almost doubled where it was in the first half; after scoring 0.88 points per possession in the first half, the Blue Devils were at 1.63 ppp by the last media timeout of the game, leading 79-62 and having run away with their first ACC win of the season.

“The way they were playing us in the first half, they’re doing a lot of switching, it kind of made us play more one-on-one than we wanted to,” Scheyer said. “I thought we forced the issue a little bit too much.

“In the second half, we just hit some beautiful plays. Passes ahead, extra passes, sharing the ball. Hitting Flip inside, his passing and scoring.”

All 12 of Filipowski’s points came in the second half. Mitchell led Duke with a career-high 21 points and rounding out the Blue Devils’ sophomore trio was Tyrese Proctor scoring 14 points off the bench, his second game back from the ankle injury.

Not to get lost in the shuffle, this was another hyper-efficient performance from Jeremy Roach, to the tune of 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting. He played the most minutes (32) for Duke, had four rebounds, two assists and two steals, and had two of Duke’s eight 3s.

“We knew they were going to fall, obviously,” Roach said of the long-range shots. “We take a lot of pride in shooting the ball. But it started with Flip, we felt like he had the mismatch early.”

That mismatch could only be found in the second half after Scheyer had to search for an answer to his lineup in what he called a “disjointed” first half.

By process of elimination, Mitchell became Duke’s last option to play center.

Filipowski played 7½ mostly ineffective minutes, during which he missed two shots, had three rebounds, two assists and two fouls. Sean Stewart had two fouls in about 3½ minutes and seemed lost within Duke’s offense; Ryan Young also had two quick fouls, and picked up a third late when he was Scheyer’s gamble of which center to insert when he had two.

That left Mitchell, the sophomore forward whose father tweeted some cryptic thoughts over the weekend about his son losing his identity.

His 18 points in the first half matched the second-most points he's scored in his two seasons at Duke; the 6-9 forward scored 12 of Duke's last 16 points going into halftime.

“I thought the job that Mark did in that first half,” Scheyer said, “and it’s not just the scoring. I’m proud of him for trusting the process and doubling down on his work. It’s not easy playing here, there’s a lot of criticism. But I thought Mark has just really stayed the course.”

In regard to his dad’s tweets, Mitchell told Devils Illustrated: “Naw, that ain’t got nothing to do with me, man. I’m good. I love Duke and I’m grateful.”

The first half felt like a back-and-forth game but Syracuse (10-4, 1-2) only led for 51 seconds, at 9-7 and 20-19. After both of those leads, Duke scored on the next possession.

Scheyer called the first half disjointed when talking about his team’s performance. That also had something to do with fouls, given there were 20 called in those first 20 minutes. There were only 11 fouls called in the second half.

TIP-INS: Duke’s record when Mitchell scores in double figures across the last two seasons is 23-2. He’s scored at least 10 points in six straight games; that’s a streak that started with Duke’s last loss (which was at Georgia Tech). … Duke had 19 assists on 31 field goals (61.3%), running the combined total to 94 assists on 153 baskets (61.4%) during the five-game winning streak. … Duke has won nine straight meetings with Syracuse. … Maliq Brown led Syracuse with 26 points, a career-high for the sophomore forward. High-scoring guard Judah Mintz added 18 points. The rest of the Orange had a combined 22 points on 8-for-25 shooting; Quadir Copeland, coming off a career-high, had six points on 2-for-9 shooting. … Duke signee Isaiah Evans was in attendance, sitting behind Duke’s bench and next to director of player development Justin Robinson.