Soaring Duke Blue Devils face off against the Oregon Ducks
The Oregon Ducks will play host to the surging Duke Blue Devils on Saturday 27 November. The Oregon Ducks will try to end the Blue Devils' win streak at five when the two teams square off at 4:00 PM EST. However, that will likely be a daunting task for the
unranked Ducks.
The number-one ranked Blue Devils have been doing nothing but living up to expectations. Duke, who was unanimously voted the best team in the NCAA this off-season, has been making short work of every opponent they faced as they try to win their second NCAA
championship in as many years. The team’s domination peaked on 19 November when the Dukes embarrassed the Colgate Raiders by a score of 110-58. Duke's most recent victim was the Kansas State Wildcats, whom the Blue Devils bested by a score of 82-68.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski was glowing after that game.
“Our guys played great. We beat an outstanding team in a great environment,” said Krzyzewski, who notched his 800th win as the Blue Devils’ coach. “Our defence was just really good. I thought we never let up. We won a big-time game.”
Guards Nolan Smith and Kyrie Irving lead the way for Duke, scoring 17 points and five rebounds each. Despite an overwhelming amount of Kansas State fans in the neutral-site game, Duke took the lead seven and a half minutes into the game and never looked
back, peaking at a 17-point lead. It was the Blue Devils' 15th straight win.
“I definitely saw a lot of purple shirts in the crowd,” said Irving of the sell-out crowd at the Sprint Center, two hours outside of the Kansas State campus. “It felt like an away game. That’s how we approached it. We had to block them out and just play
our game.”
Oregon enters the game with a much less impressive record. While the Ducks are a respectable 4-1 this season, they haven’t dominated the majority of their games the way Duke has. For the Ducks, their strongest game was probably their most recent, a 75-52
trouncing of the Texas Southern Tigers.
Coming off the bench, Tyrone Nared scored 13 points that game, while the team shot for 60 percent in the second half. They ended up with a shooting percentage of 52.7 in the whole game. Meanwhile, the lowly Tigers fell to 1-4 after that game, after shooting
a mere 39.5 percent. They didn’t do themselves any favours by committing 21 turnovers, with 13 of those coming in the first half.
The Ducks' bench in general was very strong, outscoring the Tigers by a margin of 38-11. The only player on the Ducks to break double digits was E.J Singer, who scored an unimpressive 10 points that night.
If the Ducks want to beat the power-house Blue Devils, their starters will have to be better and they’ll have to find a way to contain the Blue Devils offensive prowess. Unfortunately for the Ducks, the Blue Devils hold the statistical advantage in every
aspect of the game. Duke’s 90 points-per-game average is good for seventh overall, while Oregon’s 76.8 average puts them in 79th place.
A possible weakness for Duke is in their rebounds. The Blue Devils have registered a very average 39.2 rebounds per game, which puts them at 94th overall, a disappointing number for such a strong team. Despite the low ranking, they still beat
the Ducks, who sit at 180th overall with a less-than-stellar 36.6 rebounds.
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