Duke’s stellar defense was on full display as the Blue Devils picked up a 76-47 blowout victory over Pitt on Tuesday night.
An early January showdown between teams tied atop the ACC very rarely ends in a thrashing, yet that’s exactly what Duke did to Pitt in Cameron Indoor Stadium on Tuesday night.
The Blue Devils limited the Panthers to 31 percent shooting in their 76-47 victory, holding star guards Jaland Lowe and Ishmael Leggett to a combined 12 points on 5-of-27 shooting. Meanwhile, Pitt did not score in the final 7:59 of game action, allowing Duke to close on an 18-0 run.
It was the latest dominant performance for Duke’s defense. Jon Scheyer’s squad leads the nation in KenPom adjusted defensive efficiency, and its 86.0 mark is on pace to be the sport’s best since Texas Tech’s 2021-22 campaign and one of the best in college basketball history.
That efficiency has only improved recently. Opponents are averaging just 57.1 points during Duke’s current nine-game win streak, which includes wins over two of the ACC’s best teams (Louisville, Pitt) and perhaps the best team in the country (Auburn).
Tuesday’s showing may have been the Blue Devils’ best defensive performance to date, holding the Panthers to their lowest shooting percentage of the season.
“Their length and their size plays into it,” Pitt head coach Jeff Capel said. “Their ability to switch everything took us out of some things. Our decision-making at times wasn’t great … but it’s tough to score at the rim on those guys with their size.
“They’re very good defensively. … They’re big, they’re long, they’re athletic and they play really hard.”
Duke has positional size and athleticism that others simply don’t. The Blue Devils are the second tallest team in the country, and nobody in the rotation is shorter than 6-5. Three players in Scheyer’s nine-man rotation are 6-9 or taller, with the rest hovering between 6-5 and 6-7.
—Staff rankings: Duke climbs to No. 4 in Heat Check CBB poll
Switching it up against Pitt
Having that many similar bodies allows the Blue Devils to switch just about everything when playing man-to-man defense, a strategy that allows for playing with more pressure.
While Sion James has locked in as Duke’s lockdown perimeter defender, it also helps to have three elite rim protectors anchoring the paint. To that end, Khaman Maluach, Cooper Flagg and Maliq Brown all rank among the ACC leaders in block rate.
However, Duke did something against Pitt it hadn’t done much this season — it let Maluach and Brown guard the ball at the top of the key, depending on which big man was in the game. The Blue Devils’ aggressive switching kept the big men up top. In response, Lowe and Pitt’s other guards tried to take advantage of the bigger defenders on them, but they couldn’t get past their length effectively.
Scheyer hailed the strategy after the game, noting that even when Pitt’s guards were able to get into the lane, they couldn’t create enough separation from Duke’s length behind them.
“They’ve been averaging, what, 84 points per game?” Scheyer said. “So we end up switching a lot to try to force one-on-one, though they have really good one-on-one players. The story tonight was our collective defense. To hold them to 47 points was terrific.”
He added: “Our defense has been good from the outset, but we haven’t felt like we’ve hit our ceiling.”
Duke’s defense has been this good, and they’re still tinkering to get better?
That should scare opponents.