After four possessions, Duke had scored four times. There were 3-pointers and midrange jumpshots, some coming after an offensive rebound. But for each of their first four possessions, the Blue Devils scored.
This stretch wasn’t the difference Wednesday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium. IU led for almost eight minutes in the first half.
But in Duke’s 94-74 win, IU couldn’t consistently get stops on defense, allowing Duke to shoot 52 percent from the field and gather 26 second chance points.
“I’m sure they wanted to play better defense, but we were playing pretty good offense,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “A lot of times their offense was better than our defense. But for a period of time there we just kind of scored.”
There were moments Wednesday where the unranked Hoosiers (5-3) looked like they might upset the No. 7 ranked Blue Devils (7-1). IU did also manage to shoot more than 50 percent from the floor itself, thanks to shooting 41 percent from behind the arc and getting easy field goals around the basket.
There was the stretch of 12 straight Hoosier points which included a dunk from freshman center Thomas Bryant and junior forward Troy Williams. The stretch also included 3-pointers from senior guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell and sophomore guard James Blackmon Jr.
“That’s usually going to be a pretty good percentage but we let them have too much,” IU Coach Tom Crean said. “And there was their length, our guys hadn’t seen that length.”
After a layup from freshman forward O.G. Anunoby with 8:50 left in the first half gave IU a 26-22 lead, Duke took over.
The Blue Devils closed the first half on a 29-16 run. Then they came out starting the second half on a 9-0 run. With 15:08 left in the first half, a little less than 14 minutes after IU led by four, the Duke lead had stretched to 18 points.
But it’s not as if IU couldn’t score, the problem came on the occasions Duke missed.
The Blue Devils outrebounded the Hoosiers 38-25 and grabbed 19 offensive rebounds. IU only had 16 defensive rebounds and Bryant and junior forward Collin Hartman both failed to grab a rebound.
“The length and the strength and experience on that frontline really hurt us,” Crean said. “We didn’t get enough guard rebounds to make up for it.”
It all meant the Blue Devils had 17 more field goal attempts than the Hoosiers.
The first play of the game, junior guard Matt Jones missed a jumper. But junior forward Amile Jefferson was able to get the offensive rebound easily and pass to a wide open Ingram behind the arc. Ingram would make the three pointer, and Duke made 10 more after that, most of them without an IU defender in reach.
Some of this was due to a Duke guard penetrating the IU zone and kicking the ball out, but a lot of it was due to offensive rebounds and Duke finding an open teammate among a scrambling IU defense.
“I thought we could drive and get offensive boards if we were patient and strong,” Krzyzewski said. “We had 19 offensive boards, and I think we had 26 second chance points. But even if we didn’t get the point we got a chance to run our offense again.”
