NEW YORK — Pretty, or effective? If given the choice, Jon Scheyer will take the latter every time.
Last season, in Duke’s first marquee contest — a Champions Classic showdown with Kentucky — the Blue Devils played beautiful aesthetic basketball for the better part of 38 minutes, only to crumble down the stretch against an older Wildcats team. But in this year’s Champions Classic, on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, it was the opposite.
No. 5 Duke (5-0) was mostly disjointed, but clutch enough down the stretch to save a 78-66 win over No. 24 Kansas (3-2).
The result was somewhat easier because Kansas was playing without Darryn Peterson, its top-three recruit and star guard. Peterson missed KU’s last two games with a lingering hamstring injury before its prime-time showdown with the Blue Devils, and Kansas coach Bill Self said prior to the game that Peterson wouldn’t suit up Tuesday either, spoiling a matchup of potential No. 1 picks against Duke’s Cameron Boozer.
Sans Peterson, someone had to step up for Kansas to have any chance — and from the opening possession, it was clear that was going to be sophomore center Flory Bidunga.
Bidunga’s offensive rebound and putback on the Jayhawks’ opening possession — to say nothing of his rim-rattling slam dunk on KU’s second possession — set the tone on a night where the 6-foot-10, 235-pounder was everywhere. On offense, Bidunga’s screening and sheer force at the rim threw Duke’s defense out of whack. And defensively, his strength and length made life exceedingly difficult for Boozer anytime he stepped foot in the paint.
Which is why, when Bidunga picked up his second personal foul with 6:40 left in the first half, everything changed.
Kansas, which led 26-20 when coach Bill Self pulled Bidunga, lost the offensive flow and aggression that had helped it punch above its Peterson-less form. Duke suddenly had newfound space on the interior and the rest of its offense naturally fell into place. By halftime, Kansas’ momentum was gone, with Duke ending the half on a 21-7 run to take a 41-33 halftime lead.
And while KU kept clawing back in the second half — especially with Bidunga (14 points, six rebounds) back on the floor — that first-half run gave Duke enough cushion to outlast the Jayhawks. Thrice in a row over the final 10 minutes, Self’s team cut Duke’s lead to just 5 points. All three times Duke answered, either with a set coach Jon Scheyer drew up — like Patrick Ngongba finding a back-cutting Maliq Brown for a dunk — or a Blue Devil drive that drew contact.
There was no decisive moment when Duke guaranteed its win. Nothing sexy, at least. Just simple, effective, grind-it-out basketball — the kind that, as history shows, a team must be able to play to have any chance in March.
This story will be updated.