With Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, Khaman Maluach, and Carmelo Anthony all present, Duke put on a dominant display over Syracuse, 101-64. Specifically in the second half where the Blue Devils dropped 61 points.
This comes less than two weeks after Duke scored 25 points in the second half against Boston College.
It was an offensive display that saw Duke score on almost every single trip down the floor except for one where they tried to throw a lob into triple coverage.
It was another night where Cam Boozer poured in a casual 22 points and 12 rebounds. This was the 8th time this season where Boozer had a 20+ point and 10+ rebound game which ties him with UNC's, Caleb Wilson, for most in the ACC.
Jon Scheyer was very pleased with what he saw from Duke, offensively, tonight. Specifically speaking on the second half he said "I thought our transition game really showed tonight. We've been searching for a little bit."
He also felt that a big reason for things clicking the way they did in the second half was guys just making the simple plays. A lot of times when a team gets on a role like that, you can tend to look at the scoreboard or start thinking about your stats, but none of Duke's players did that tonight.
Duke knows what their strengths are and they are becoming more secure in that as every Jon Scheyer coached team has done since he took over for Coach K in 2023.
To further drive the point home on how efficient Duke was offensively, the Devils scored 1.57 points per possession. That's no. 5 all time for Duke in offensive efficiency since 1997.
This was about as good of a showing as Duke could have hoped for with what's coming up on Saturday. Duke will be heading to Capital One Arena in Washington D.C. to take on the now no. 1 team in the country in Michigan.
"We knew they were going to be really good." Scheyer said. He mentioned that when these games are scheduled before the season, you don't always know exactly how the teams will end up, but this is about as good of a matchup as Duke could have hoped for. "It's such an incredible opportunity for our group." Scheyer added.
Duke-Michigan will be on Saturday night at 6:30pm on ESPN.