Preview: Delaware at No. 7 Duke

You’ll have to forgive the cliché, but: The only way to gain experience is through experience.

Duke’s loss to Kansas on Tuesday night in the Champions Classic hurt the Blue Devils in the loss column, and there are lessons to be learned in committing turnovers (charges), but it was a five-point loss that should ultimately help a Duke team that seemed to mature a great deal in Indianapolis.

“To be in this environment and in this situation in game three for our group was, I think, going to be a big-time learning experience,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said on Tuesday night. “It hurts, that’s how it should feel.”

Freshmen accounted for 111 of Duke’s 200 minutes against Kansas. Transfers Ryan Young (20) and Jacob Grandison (10) had another 30 and considering sophomore Jaylen Blakes (18) wasn’t in the rotation last year, only point guard Jeremy Roach entered the Kansas game with prior experience on a comparable stage.

That’ll continue to be the case, and Duke’s average experience will only drop when freshman Dariq Whitehead is added back into the mix (not Friday night, but perhaps Monday night against Bellarmine).

“No time to waste, we come right back, play again on Friday, play the following Monday,” Scheyer said. “And we have a lot of games going forward.”

**********

Here’s what to know ahead of Friday night’s game:

Time: 7 p.m.

Location: Cameron Indoor Stadium.

TV: Regional Sports Networks (Bally Sports South if you’re in N.C.).

Announcers: Bob Rathbun (play-by-play) and Mike Gminski (analyst).

Series; last meeting: Duke leads 2-0; Duke won 88-50 in 2012.

Records: Delaware 1-1; Duke 2-1.

Stat to watch: 48.3%.

That’s Duke’s offensive rebound percentage, per KenPom, which means Duke is rebounding nearly half of its missed shots.

We’ll dive into the matchup advantage shortly, but first in general: Duke has rebounded an absurd amount of its missed shots this season.

It’s been a steady progression, from 16 offensive rebounds against Jacksonville to 20 against USC Upstate to 21 against Kansas. Granted, when you miss more shots — Duke’s shooting percentage went from 45.8 to 44.1 to 35.8, respectively — there are more offensive rebounds available.

As you’d imagine with three double-doubles to start his career, freshman Kyle Filipowski has been a factor with 11 offensive rebounds. Young actually has more, with 12 — twice as many as he has defensive rebounds.

Perhaps more impressive is that all eight Blue Devils in Scheyer’s rotation other than Blakes have multiple offensive rebounds.

That number is bound to show some regression this season — last year’s offensive rebound leader was TCU at 37.9% and the highest percentage of the last four seasons was UNC at 40.9 for the 2020-21 season — but as long as Duke has significant size advantages, the opportunity will be there to crash the offensive boards.

Matchup to watch: Delaware’s bigs vs. Duke’s BIGS.

About that size advantage …

Delaware has three 6-9 players, the tallest on the roster. Two of them haven’t played this season and the third, Nigel Shadd, is a sixth-year player who’s on his third school (Kansas State and Pacific) and only played 3 minutes against Air Force last week.

The Blue Hens are a smaller and quicker team; Duke has some physical advantages that should work to its advantage.

When Duke plays Wake Forest this season (Dec. 20 and Jan. 31), the Blue Devils will see the former Blue Hen who would’ve anchored the interior. Andrew Carr (6-10, 220) came on strong at the end of last season and transferred to Wake Forest in the spring, and is averaging 12.7 points and 7.3 rebounds per game.

Blue Hen to watch: Guard Jameer Nelson Jr. (No. 0).

He’s not the pick here just because of nostalgia for his father, the former St. Joseph’s legend who had a 14-year NBA career.

Nelson led the Blue Hens in scoring last season (13.6 points per game) and has scored 18 in each of the first two games this season.

Nelson is a ball-dominant guard who’s more likely to burn defenses with scoring than by setting up teammates. He had 78 assists and 88 turnovers last season, and that ratio is 4-6 to start this season.

The 6-1, 200-pounder is a fourth-year player in his second season at Delaware. He spent his first two seasons at George Washington, but announced a transfer out after seven games in the 2020-21 season. He originally committed to St. Joseph’s, but the firing of Phil Martelli — the same coach his dad played for — occurred in the spring of Nelson’s senior season.

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

It’s not picking on Proctor to list him here again as much as it’s being intrigued about whether he found his groove in the second half against Kansas.

Proctor hit two mid-range jumpers early in the second half against the Jayhawks, and then hit a 3-pointer, all in the first five minutes after halftime. For the rest of the half he was 0-for-3, but added three assists (had none in the rest of the game) and made a couple of free throws.

The freshman’s nine points in the second half came after he scored five in the first five halves of his Duke career.

It looked like things finally clicked against Kansas; now we’ll see whether Proctor gained confidence and how he’ll build off of that showing.

KenPom prediction: Duke wins 82-62.

Devils Illustrated prognosis: Getting the obvious out of the way first: This is a game Duke should roll. There might be some game pressure in the first half, maybe more of an extent than USC Upstate jumping out to a 7-0 lead, but the Blue Devils should eventually overwhelm Delaware.

It becomes, then, a matter of Duke getting back into a rhythm after the loss to Kansas.

Tuesday night’s loss will wind up being a net positive from the experience gained, along with adhering to the cliché of it being easier to learn and grow after a loss than a win.

The process of building off of that comes Friday night.