I'm not sure that if the Western Michigan Broncos had Tim Tebow playing for them that they'd have done much better again Duke Friday night. The Blue Devils showed no signs of not having played a basketball game in the last 10 days as they cruised to a 110-70 victory to improve to 11-1 on the season.
Duke got another solid game out of some of it starters but it was its bench again that saw a lot of playing time in the lopsided contest that showed a lot of solid performances from the non starters.
Austin Rivers and Seth Curry lead the Blue Devils with 20 and 22 points apiece shooting a combined 14 of 22 from the floor.
Duke dominated every aspect of the game. They out rebounded Western Michigan 44 to 26 with Miles Plumlee leading the way with 15 rebounds. He added nine points for one of his most impressive games of the season.
They shot 80 percent from the free throw line and went to the line a total of 35 times compared to the Broncos 11 trips to the line. They also shot 54 percent from the floor.
The Blue Devils had five players score in double figures and contrary to the wisdom imparted on all of us by game analyst Len Elmore, Duke's two point guards(Elmore claimed Duke doesn't have one), Tyler Thornton and Quinn Cook scored 12 and 16 points respectively.
Cook for the second straight game was impressive. Along with his scoring, he was 4-7 from the floor, he dished out a team high eight assists, grabbed four rebounds and had two steals and a blocked shot. His all around performance and increasing minutes (23) may mean that Cook becomes a bigger piece of Duke's equation going forward.
It was a refreshing site to see Curry playing well again after he had struggled a bit following the Maui Invitational. The insertion of Tyler Thornton and the extra minutes by Cook, means Curry doesn't have to play as much at the point guard and can play more naturally at the off guard position.
Overall it was an impressive performance out of the Blue Devils, whom I expected to struggle at least for a while as they readjusted to playing in real game action after such a long layoff.
There were absolutely no signs of a struggle as Duke quickly built a lead that just kept growing and growing. There were a few spurts in he game when the defensive intensity wasn't where it needed to be, but with such a big lead it is hard to nit pick that as a fan.
Now Mike Krzyzewski will be working on it as he, despite the lead, showed signs of frustration with how his team was playing.
The competition does get a little tougher with Penn coming into Cameron to break in the New Year. We will have more on that game as well as a special commentary from one Duke fan and Duke Sports Blog follower who has a special relationship with Penn.
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