Duke keeps growing up with latest redemption tour game

GREENSBORO – The players-only meeting Duke held after its loss at Miami a month ago brought to light some harsh truths.

One of those was how much disrespect of the Blue Devils there was — and not just from social media wastelands.

“Just from the teams we played,” freshman Kyle Filipowski said. “After some of the losses, teams were saying, ‘We ain’t shit.’ And I mean, we’ve really taken that personal.

“We came together and said enough is enough. We realized how good we can be.”

It’s a realization that has the Blue Devils one win away from an ACC championship.

The Blue Devils’ redemption tour rolled forward with their 85-78 win over No. 14 Miami in the ACC tournament semifinals on Friday night at the Greensboro Coliseum.

Fourth-seeded Duke (25-8) will face Virginia, a 76-56 winner against Clemson in Friday’s late game, in Saturday night’s championship game. It’s another redemption tour chapter, with the only meeting between those two the Blue Devils’ overtime loss in which the ACC admitted Filipowski should’ve been shooting free throws at the end of regulation.

First things first: Duke’s exorcism of some demons.

“Obviously we had beat them in the regular season, but I think even when we beat them we didn’t put our best foot forward,” freshman Mark Mitchell said. “Tonight we just wanted to come out here and do that.”

It was a full-circle moment for a Duke team that was run off the floor in an 81-59 game in Miami on Feb. 6. The Blue Devils made it clear Thursday, with the matchup set, that they had some extra motivation to pay the Hurricanes back for a game in which they were “punked,” per Dereck Lively II and Mitchell.

And it was a game that lived up to its billing as one between the hottest two teams in the ACC; one between the two most-likely teams to make deep runs in the NCAA tournament.

“I thought it was as high of a level of game as we've played,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “I thought for us, we actually came out and threw some haymakers at them and gave them a great shot. For them, they're just so steady. They keep coming at you.”

The evidence of that — and of Duke’s maturity — is best displayed here: Duke led for the entire second half, but Miami (25-7) cut the deficit to 2 or 3 points on 11 occasions.

On Duke’s 11 ensuing possessions, the Blue Devils 21 points — only leaving two possessions empty, and getting those contributions from six players in a balanced response.

“It definitely takes the energy out of them,” Lively said of Duke’s highly responsive offense. “(Having to) guard somebody who’s consistently going at you each possession is going to take the life out of you.”

The sequence that allowed Duke to cruise across the finish line wasn’t one of those instances.

Duke’s lead was 75-71 when Jeremy Roach took a dribble hand-off and rose up from the left wing for a dagger of a 3-pointer with 1:31 left.

“The last 3 I shot, it felt good so I really was trying to get another 3 up because I knew the next one was probably going to go in,” Roach said.

Duke didn’t quite make 11 3-pointers like Thursday, but the percentage was better as the Blue Devils were 8-for-16. Part of the logic there was that the Blue Devils wanted to take advantage of size matchups with Filipowski and Mitchell; part of it was because Miami’s only true rim protector exited the game after 66 seconds.

Norchad Omier rebounded a missed free throw and twisted his right ankle. A potential return to the game was quickly ruled out by Miami’s official Twitter account.

That didn’t alter Duke’s plan of attack, guard Tyrese Proctor said, but Filipowski noted the effect it had on Miami.

“I think it definitely took an edge off of them, for sure,” Filipowski said. “That was a little discouraging. Obviously it sucks for him, I gave him my support after the game. But we looked at it as an advantage during the game, attacking the paint and attacking the glass.”

The first half was so free-flowing that the under-8 media timeout was skipped, as the teams played until 3:41 before a timeout by Scheyer when Miami took a 32-31 lead. To that point, there had been nine lead changes and four times — aligning with the game these teams played in Durham earlier this season, and not Miami’s rout later in the season.

Duke put together a strong finish to the first half after Scheyer’s timeout. The Blue Devils scored on four of their last five possessions, the last of them being a Dariq Whitehead missed three, rebounded by Filipowski, fed back to Whitehead for a corner 3.

Whitehead scored 16 points, which included three free throws twice when he was fouled shooting from long range. It’s the most points he’s scored since his season-high of 18 against Boston College on Jan. 7; he averaged five points across Duke’s last five games, making 4 of 12 3-pointers.

“If Dariq can play like that, I don’t think no one can beat us,” Mitchell said. “When we’re clicking on all cylinders, it’s scary.”

It’s both scary and exciting for a Blue Devils team peaking at the right time.

TIP-INS: Duke will play in the ACC championship for the 35th time, and this is the 70th season of ACC basketball. The Blue Devils have played in more than half of those because the 2020 tournament was cancelled. … Mitchell scored 14 points, his sixth straight game in double-figure scoring and running Duke's record to 15-1 when he scores at least 10 points. ... Filipowski’s 17-point, 11-rebound game is his 15th double-double of the season, and comes after his first game without a rebound. … During Duke’s eight-game winning streak, the Blue Devils are averaging 77.4 points, shooting 49.9% from the field, 36.9% on 3s and 79.2% on free throws.

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Here’s a quick glance at Saturday night’s ACC championship game:

Time: 8:30 p.m.

Location: Greensboro Coliseum.

TV: ESPN.

Announcers: Dan Shulman (play-by-play) and Jay Bilas (analyst).

Series; last meeting: Duke leads 123-54; Virginia won 69-62 in overtime on Feb. 11, which is the last time Duke lost.

Records: Duke 25-8; Virginia 25-6.

Stat to watch: 22.

That’s how many turnovers Duke committed at Virginia, a season high.

Since then, Duke has turned the ball over 75 times in eight games.

Cavalier to watch: Wing Armaan Franklin (No. 4).

Franklin’s last 20-point game came against Duke, when he scored 23 against the Blue Devils. He’s coming off a 16-point game against Clemson.

Blue Devil to watch: Forward Kyle Filipowski (No. 30).

Don’t overthink this one.

Filipowski’s only scoreless game of the season came against Virginia. He’s made 16 of the 19 shots he’s taken in two games in Greensboro, filling it up through a gnarly twisted left ankle early in Duke’s win over Pitt.

KenPom prediction: Duke wins 63-62.

Devils Illustrated prognosis: There’s a tug at the back of my mind that Duke is bound for a stumble, given how many things have gone right for this team in the last four weeks.

At the same time, that line of thought stems from watching this team in the first three months of the season. That’s when every time it felt like the Blue Devils turned a corner, they’d falter.

Lively laid out the best reason for why a stumble may not be coming in this game, either.

“We feel like each and every one of the teams out here really hasn’t seen the true us, you know?” he said. “Who we were at the beginning of the season, in the middle of the season and at the end of the season are three completely different teams.”

That last one is playing at a high enough level to make you think the Blue Devils can beat anybody.