It didn’t take long for Duke to get over a tough loss to No. 5 Kansas and Florida Atlantic was in the unenviable position of having to be the Blue Devils next opponent.
Rodney Hood had a career night as a Blue Devil scoring 28 points to help lead Duke past the Owls 97 to 64. The second best player on the court for the Blue Devils was none other than Andre Dawkins, who after not playing in the loss to Kansas scored 17 points. The season high came on 5-8 shooting from three demonstrating that even after a year off he still has the stroke.
The Blue Devils still got 21 points from stand-out freshman Jabari Parker, and were clearly head and tails better than Florida Atlantic.
After struggling on the free-throw line against Kansas Tuesday night, the Blue Devils shot 70 percent from the floor hitting 17 of 24 from the charity stripe.
It will be hard to assess too much from this game though as the Owls were clearly over matched from the opening tip. Duke got a bit of disjointed play out of starting point guard Quinn Cook and Rasheed Sulaimon who jumped into the starting lineup for the first time this year was only 2 of 6 for four points.
Duke clearly is an extremely talented team but they are still not close to a finished product either offensively or defensively. There were still quite a few defensive lapses and the Blue Devils only out rebounded Florida Atlantic 41-38 further showing that games against bigger teams could cause problems.
The Blue Devils get the win none the less and move to 2-1 on the season and now get set for the NIT Preseason Tournament. They will take on UNC-Asheville at Cameron Indoor Stadium as part of the first round of games of the tournament. If they win as expected, they will advance to New York where many are expecting an eventual meeting in the tournament finals against Arizona.
