Duke basketball guard Jeremy Roach took the blame for the team’s slow start.
Any team needs a strong captain, and the Duke basketball programme has one in
The senior point guard shoulder all of the blame for Duke’s slow start on Friday evening against Southern Indiana which saw the Blue Devils trailing by four, 35-31, at halftime.
“That definitely wasn’t the first half that we expected,” Roach said after his team was able to rally for a 80-62 victory.
“Obviously, I take accountability for that, just how slow we started, just the energy.”
Roach, who had just two points at halftime, picked up the slack in the second half with a team-high 16 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field as he was on the court for all but a minute of the final half.
“This was a stepping stone – we took a step back, actually, this game.”
Friday night was the final game of the Blue Devil Challenge and its last tuneup before one of its toughest games of the season in Fayetteville against Arkansas in the inaugural ACC vs. SEC Challenge.
Duke basketball head coach questions defensive effort
In the event’s first two games, Duke easily defeated Bucknell and La Salle, but Southern Indiana posed a new kind of challenge because of the game’s timing on Thanksgiving and the impending big clash.
It served only as our defence. Regarding his team’s sluggish start, Jon Scheyer observed, “We were just giving up layups like crazy.”
We are quite proud of the fact that we have kept every team below their scoring average thus far.
Before being limited to just 38.5 percent and 28.6 percent in the second half, the Eagles hit 43.8 percent from the field and 50.0% from 3-point range in the first half.
On Wednesday night at 9:15 p.m. EST on ESPN, see Duke basketball as a much more focused and motivated squad.
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