Hot shooting Duke beats NC State

Posted On: January 19, 2011 By: Cliff Comments: (zero)

I wasn’t able to put my full attention to the game last night as our daughter is the hospital but I was able to watch most of the first half and parts of the second half. I came away pretty impressed with how the Blue Devils shot the ball, but there is still plenty of work that needs to be done especially on the defensive side in my opinion.

I love the fact that Nolan Smith has stepped up so much since Kyrie Irving went down with the toe injury. You can tell that Nolan has a ton of confidence right now and he pretty much has the green light to shoot whenever he has the ball. Once again Smith led the Blue Devils in scoring with 22 points.

Fellow Senior, Kyle Singler continues to score buckets right behind Nolan as he chipped in with 18 of his own. Singler moved into seventh on Duke’s all-time scoring list with 2,086. He’s 50 points behind Mike Alarie.

Finally, the Plumlee brothers and Ryan Kelly stepped up down low. They grabbed the boards, they blocked shots, and they made the baskets that they should make on a consistent basis. With the guards shooting the ball like they are, the big guys need to play well down low to give the opposing defenders fits just like they did at NC State.

Overall it was a good win for the Duke as they moved to 4-1 in the conference. Anytime you can pick up a road win in the conference it is huge. Up next is an afternoon game on Saturday against Wake Forest. The Deamon Deacons are down this year, so I expect Duke to put up 80+ points and win by 12-15.

Cliff – @justduke.com

Category: Duke Basketball, Duke Basketball Game Notes