Next Up - Wake Forest

Jan 31, 2023 - 5:40 PM

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Date 1/31 || Time 7:00 || Venue Cameron Indoor Stadium || Video ESPN

Jon Scheyer gets his first home-and-home ACC game as Wake Forest visits Cameron after beating Duke in Winston-Salem in December, 81-70.

Wake Forest toyed with Duke in its first ACC road game under Scheyer, maintaining a consistent double-digit lead in the second half.

The Demon Deacons also went over Duke with ease, hitting big men Matthew Marsh and Andrew Carr for far too many alley-oops and easy baskets. Scheyer probably had nightmares about that.

Kyle Filipowski, who has been so exceptional as a freshman, wasn’t overly impressive in this one. He shot 4-14 for nine points, had just five boards and picked up four fouls.

Ryan Young played well, but he is not a guy who is going to stop an alley-oop. The guy who can do that, Dereck Lively, didn't play. Neither did Dariq Whitehead, and our guess is he won’t play in this one either after his injury against Virginia Tech (he did participate some in warmups in Atlanta, however).

And keep in mind too that Jeremy Roach was still dealing with a painful toe injury at the Joel. He may still be for all we know, but he has been effective in the last couple of games and has shown no visible signs of pain.

Roach had five turnovers against Wake. We’d be very surprised if that happened again.

Duke got out rebounded 37-29 overall and offensively 9-7 which was an anomaly this season.

Finally, Wake Forest got to the line 26 times and hit 22 of those (84.6 percent).

Duke hit 10-14, giving Wake Forest a 12 point advantage, which was almost exactly their margin of victory.

When you factor in four fouls for Filipowski and Roach and five for Jaylen Blakes, who scored 17 points in 26 minutes in one of his best games of the year, it was a lot to overcome.

Duke has changed a lot since then.

Filipowski, after a brief dip around the New Year, has come on like gangbusters. Roach is back to his steady self. Tyrese Proctor has grown tremendously and Lively seems to be emerging as a real force. If he stays out of foul trouble, which he has been doing, the Deacs will have a much tougher time passing over Duke’s defense for easy alley-oops.

Not that the Deacs aren’t still dangerous. True, they have lost three straight, falling at Virginia by nine then losing heartbreakers to Pitt (81-79) and NC State (79-77), but it’s not like they’re falling apart.

Tyree Appleby has been as a real pain for opponents. The Florida transfer is averaging 17.7 ppg and 6.1 apg and he’s aggressive offensively.

We’d keep an eye on Damari Monsanto too. In his last four games, he’s had 17, 25, nine and 22 points. The opponents were Clemson, Virginia, Pitt and NC State, all good defensive teams. Against Clemson, he hit 60 percent. Against Virginia, 47.4 percent. Against Pitt? 42.9 percent. And against State, 53.3 percent. And in those four games, he has hit at least 40 percent on threes, including 46.7 percent against Virginia’s always tough defense. He’s been very effective lately.

We’ve really been impressed by Cameron Hildreth too. First, how often have you seen a guard from the UK excel in NCAA basketball? And second, how he’s doing it.

Keep in mind that he’s 6-4. He’s averaging 6.3 boards and against NC State, he was more than willing to post up in the lane. He’s a hardnosed guard who reminds us, ever so slightly, of Bruce Dalrymple, one of Bobby Cremins’ best finds at Georgia Tech. Duke doesn't necessarily have a great answer for him, but we’d love to see how he performs if Whitehead is guarding him.

Seven foot big man Matthew Marsh was 5-5 for 10 points against Duke but he’s only hit double figures three other times and topped out at at eight twice since the Duke game.

The more versatile Andrew Carr may be the bigger threat. You will remember his thrilling game winner against Appalachian back on December 14th. He has to be dealt with and on the perimeter too: Carr shoots 36.1 percent on threes.

For that matter, Appleby hits 37.6 from outside,, Daivien Willamson, who is also a dangerous scorer, hits 40.7 and Monsanto 41.1 respectively.

State limited Wake to 7-21 on three for 33.3 percent. Against Pitt, 10-27 (Pitt had a sensational three point outing, hitting a school record 18). And against Virginia, 9-27.

Looks like a pattern, but that doesn’t mean they can’t go off. Clearly they’re capable; they might even be due.

When Mike Krzyzewski was coaching Duke, he always said that he didn't want his players focusing on revenge because that meant they were thinking about failure. Pretty brilliant, really.

We don’t know how Scheyer will approach this game, but it’s hard to imagine that his players have forgotten what happened in Winston-Salem.

And we have seen significant individual improvement, notably from Lively.

Lively has the potential to jam up the middle, and as we’ve seen lately, he’s playing with more confidence and, importantly, staying out of foul trouble.

Lively fouled out against Pitt on January 11th; since then, he has had seven fouls in four games and only against Miami has he had as many as three. In the last couple of games, he’s been much more aggressive offensively too.

And of course Duke is coming off of a dominant performance against Georgia Tech. Any one paying even minimal attention knew that smallish Tech has struggled on offense and Duke is huge inside. That seemed like an easy thing to forecast.

But who would have predicted Duke’s overall dominance? The brilliant ball movement? The surgical dismantling of Tech’s defense?

That was great to see.

And there’s no guarantee we will see it against Wake Forest, either. Why?

Because young teams, pretty much by definition, are inconsistent.

That said, what we’d like to see in this one is minimal turnovers, control of the boards, and powerful defense again.

And limited fouls. As noted, Wake had a big advantage at the line and Duke had three players in foul trouble up there. That really cost Duke.

Scheyer’s young Blue Devils have struggled at times this season to be sure. Saturday, they saw what their potential is and they have seen what they can be. So has everyone else. Duke has been a tough out in most games but now you have to look at them differently. It’s clearly not the same tentative group we saw at Wake Forest. This should be a very interesting game.

We’ll add links as we find them.

• X-Factor: Roach’s playmaking, 3-point shooting can help Duke men’s basketball take down Wake Forest
• Duke basketball vs. Wake Forest: Scouting report, score prediction
• Keys to the Game: Wake Forest Basketball vs Duke
• Revenge game? How to watch, stream Duke vs. Wake Forest ACC basketball on Tuesday
• Then and now: How has Duke men’s basketball changed since its first matchup against Wake Forest?
• Duke hosts Wake Forest after Monsanto’s 22-point outing