Preview: Southern Indiana at No. 9 Duke

DURHAM – There is jumping and there’s levitating and Sean Stewart looks like he’s doing the latter when he goes up for a rebound or a block attempt.

That’s what the 6-9, 227-pound freshman brings off the bench for Duke, along with bundles of energy.

“Just, when I get in there, I try to give it 100%, 110% all the time,” Stewart said after Tuesday night’s win over La Salle. “You know, that brings my teammates up when they see me bringing that energy.”

Stewart certainly did plenty of that against the Explorers with 16 points and 10 rebounds. He made 7 of 9 shots and six of his rebounds were on the offensive end.

He did all of that in 18 minutes off the bench, as coach Jon Scheyer explores which personnel combinations work best.

“For me, it starts with his energy. He brings in great energy,” Scheyer said. “You know, look, we’re still figuring out lineups and who plays well together and who complements one another.”

The Windemere, Fla., native is carving his place in the rotation while adjusting to college basketball.

The son of former NBA player Michael Stewart, Sean Stewart garnered acclaim over the summer for breaking Zion Williamson’s vertical jump record.

With a raw skillset, Scheyer has played Stewart 16 and 18 minutes in Duke’s last two games after he played a combined 16 minutes in the Blue Devils’ first three games.

“The exciting part for me is Sean, he’s got so much room to grow,” Scheyer said. “He’s at such an early stage of his development as a player, but he can do something right now that translates, with his ability to rebound, with his ability to protect the rim. His versatility guarding the ball.”

When Stewart enters the game, he plays the 5-position, which allows Kyle Filipowski to slide back to the 4-spot. Per EvanMiya.com, the two-man combination of Filipowski and Stewart is Duke’s sixth-most efficient pairing (out of 36 possible that have played at least 20 possessions together).

Role recognition is there for the freshman, which might be the most important part in all of this.

“I’ve been feeling a lot better in practice,” Stewart said. “You know, playing my role in the game. It just helps me a lot going up against guys like Flip and Mark (Mitchell) every day.

“It gets me a lot better.”

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

Time: 6 p.m.

Location: Cameron Indoor Stadium.

TV: ESPN.

Series; last meeting: First meeting; n/a.

Records: Southern Indiana 1-5; Duke 4-1.

Stat to watch: 20.5% | 18.5%.

The first number is Southern Indiana’s turnover rate, 282nd in the country; the other is Duke’s defensive turnover rate, 155th in the country (both via KenPom).

A little bit of an oddity here.

But Southern Indiana has shown that it doesn’t protect the ball very well. The Screaming Eagles have been better of late, but committed 15 turnovers in their only game against a power-conference team (Michigan State) and had 21 against Chicago State.

Duke has only had one game with a defensive turnover rate over 20% and ironically, it’s the game the Blue Devils lost.

Playing guard-reliant lineups means Duke is usually going to run; forcing turnovers is a lot easier way of running than having guards rebound.

Screaming Eagle to watch: Forward Jack Mielke (No. 10).

When it doubt, go with the guy shooting a higher percentage on 3-pointers than 2s.

Mielke is Southern Indiana’s No. 4 scorer, at 9.0 points per game (the leader is AJ Smith, at 12.3).

The 6-7, 220-pound Mielke is the top shooter, though, having hit 16 of 34 3-pointers. The junior from Downers Grove, Ill., has made multiple 3s in every game this season and his worst showing was a 2-for-6 game against Chicago State. Mielke is already two 3s shy of matching his season total from last year, when he was a reserve — he’s gone from 9.1 minutes per game last season to 26 this year.

Blue Devil to watch: Guard Jared McCain (No. 0).

When he’s in a groove, there are few better shooters in the ACC (or country) than Duke’s freshman.

McCain just has some hot-and-cold to his game. If you play the percentages, this is a game in which he heats up.

The yo-yoing of McCain’s first five games saw him foul out of his first game, score nine points with five assists and four rebounds against Arizona, go scoreless against Michigan State, post a 17-point, 10-rebound double-double against Bucknell, and most recently score six points and commit four fouls and two turnovers against La Salle earlier this week.

The bet here is that McCain develops consistency over the course of the season, and that he bounces back with a double-digit scoring performance in this game.

What’s on deck: Duke heads back onto the road and plays a couple of power-conference teams in its next two games.

The Blue Devils are at Arkansas for the ACC-SEC Challenge on Wednesday night, and then have their ACC opener at Georgia Tech on Saturday.

Southern Indiana goes from playing Duke at Cameron to playing East West University. No, really. That’s not an NCAA or NAIA member — it’s something called the United States Collegiate Athletic Association.

KenPom prediction: Duke wins 90-58.

Devils Illustrated prognosis: There’s not a nice way of saying this … I doubt this will be competitive.

This should be Duke’s most-lopsided win of the season. It’s a game that might not get to that point because of how much Scheyer experiments with lineups.

Sound all of the panic bells you can find if this score is within 15 in the second half.