No. 10 Duke has one more stop before a showdown against North Carolina that could allow the Blue Devils to secure a chance to win the Atlantic Coast Conference’s regular season. It won’t necessarily be easy, however, for Duke when it travels to face nearby North Carolina State on Monday night at Raleigh, N.C. Duke (23-6, 14-4 ACC) convincingly won two home games in the past week, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much ahead of the next game. The Wolfpack had a big upset victory last season at home against the Blue Devils, winning 84-60.
Kyle Filipowski, a sophomore centre for Duke, stated, “We’re going to make that a statement this year for sure. We have to keep what happened last year in mind.” “Just remembering how it went last year, we don’t want to be embarrassed like that again, so we’re going to do whatever we can to not make it that way.” The Blue Devils crushed Virginia 73-48 on Saturday night in a performance that gave the Duke players a lot of confidence. “Just that killer instinct, that’s probably one of the best ones we’ve had,” senior guard Jeremy Roach of Duke said.
NC State (17-12, 9-9) has lost three of its past four games. Each of the setbacks has come by a single-digit margin. The Wolfpack were unable to protect a 10-point lead early in the second half in Saturday’s 79-70 loss at No. 9 North Carolina. NC State was outscored 42-25 in the half. “Just keep fighting,” coach Kevin Keatts said. “We did some good things. We just have to figure out how to build on it.”
Against the Tar Heels, NC State’s second-half shooting percentage was lowered by 22.2 percent. Among those was a 0-for-15 run. Keatts remarked, “I don’t think we ever got rattled.” “I thought we started missing shots.” The fact that Jayden Taylor shot 5-for-7 from outside the 3-point line was a positive development for the Wolfpack’s shooting overall. His offence may be finding its groove after he scored a career-high 24 points against Florida State in the previous game. He has a five-game stretch of double-digit point performances, which is season-high. This season, the Wolfpack have a 3–0 record versus rated teams. It is not ideal for the Wolfpack to play two Top 10 opponents back-to-back.
“We might be the only team in America to ever play Carolina on Saturday and Duke on Monday without it being a tournament situation,” Keatts stated. Keatts noticed the significant early advantage that Duke had over Virginia following Saturday’s game in Chapel Hill. “I need Virginia to come back and this game to go into triple overtime,” he stated. That was not the case. Rather, Duke was able to take extended second-half rests from many of its starters. The Blue Devils’ coach, Jon Scheyer, expressed his pride in the way his squad has responded to maintain a strong position in the ACC standings.
They’ve blocked out a lot of noise through the whole year,” Scheyer said. “They’ve just focused on what we have to do, and I think we’ve really gotten better from it.” This is the only scheduled meeting of the season between the Blue Devils and Wolfpack.
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