Duke Blows Past Tennessee in Exhibition Game

It's only preseason, but the Duke Basketball program looks impressive in its exhibition schedule so far. 

The Blue Devils took care of Belmont with a 40-point thrashing, 102-62, last week. And now they took down another opponent on Tuesday night in convincing fashion. 

In a preseason matchup between top-10 teams, Duke made it look easy against Tennessee on Tuesday night, beating the Volunteers 101-64 in Cameron Indoor Stadium. And when I say make it look easy, they did just that. 

Duke controlled the game from the start and jumped out to an early lead, never looking back in this one. They led 54-30 at halftime and had the chance to pour it on more throughout the game. 

But this performance was headlined by a very impressive freshman.

Guard Deron Rippey Jr. led the way for the Blue Devils, scoring 21 points to lead all scorers in this game. Rippey Jr. shot 9 of 12 from the field, including 3 of 6 from the three-point line. His performance showcased just what he can do on the court despite being a freshman, and he is now seeing his stock rise early on in his college basketball career. 

Rippey was able to not only hit his open shots but also create shots off the dribble and make contested attempts. He dished out three assists, too. 

For Duke overall, they had six players score in double figures for this exhibition win as John Blackwell had 18, Dame Sarr with 15, Patrick Ngongba with 13, and Sebastian Wilkins and Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje both finishing with 11 points. 

Ngongba led the way with seven rebounds while three other players had five rebounds each as well. 

Building that huge lead allowed Duke to give more players minutes to see what they have in terms of depth on the bench, too. That could be key moving forward for Jon Scheyer and his staff, allowing them to get a look at some other players on the roster.

While it's only an exhibition game, it was still impressive for Duke to put on that performance against what is expected to be a good Tennessee team. The Volunteers were missing a few starters, which should be noted here. 

Next up for Duke is a trip to Lawrence, Kansas where they will face off against the Kansas Jayhawks in another exhibition game on Sunday, October 25th. They will open the regular season by hosting Army on November 2nd.