GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 09: Dereck Lively II #1 of the Duke Blue Devils blocks a shot by Jamarius Burton #11 of the Pittsburgh Panthers during the first half of their game in the quarterfinals of the ACC Basketball Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum on March 09, 2023 in Greensboro, North Carolina. | Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images
And it wasn’t nearly that close.
Duke blew out Pitt and sent a warning to the rest of the ACC: this team is light years ahead of where it was a few short weeks ago.
The Blue Devils have grown up.
Where do you even start?
This team reached rare heights Thursday afternoon. It started early when Kyle Filipowski hit a couple of threes to push Duke out to a 6-0 lead and then continued as the Blue Devils pulled out to a 12-0 lead and then 20-6, and the rout was on.
Basically this game was just a basketball Woodstock for the Blue Devils. Duke held Pitt to 42.3 percent overall and limited the hot shooting Panthers to 5-18 from three point range. Four of Pitt’s starters were held to less than five points. Stop and think about that for a minute. Only Jamarius Burton hit double figures among the starters and he only hit 5-12. Guillermo Diaz-Graham had 14 off the bench to remind us that when the twins (including brother Jorge) mature, they’re going to be a load.
Duke, though, was kind of surreal. The Blue Devils finished with 62.1 percent overall, 42.3 percent on threes and 72.2 percent from the line. And that’s counting about 15 minutes of garbage time.
Maximum Mark Mitchell was 4-8. Filipowski was 8-10 and 4-6 on threes. Dereck Lively was 5-6 including a deep corner three. Tyrese Proctor was 4-6 and 3-5. Jeremy Roach was 3-5. Dariq Whitehead shot 3-4. Jacob Grandison hit 3-5.
Duke’s percentage came down late because the deep reserves shot 6-19 but so what? It was a brilliant game for Duke.
The Blue Devils set an ACC Tournament record with 27 assists on 36 shots which is spectacular.
And of those, 10 were by Proctor. Remember when he was tentative in December? Yeah. That player has been replaced by the new version of Proctor, where he’s improving so fast that it’s hard to keep up.
We find this hard to believe, but ESPN credits Filipowski with zero rebounds. Seriously? Duke had a 36 point lead in a game where its best rebounder had none?
Amazing.
The whole game was amazing really. It was so overwhelming that the announcers at one point said that “Duke’s in full celebration mode...but they have been for about an hour.”
Amazingly, it wasn’t hype.
Miami Friday night is another matter. But on Thursday, Duke was simply brilliant.
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