Next Up - Baylor In The Garden

A very interesting December matchup

Date 12/21 || Time 7:00 || Venue Madison Square Garden || Video ESPN

Duke and Baylor will play Wednesday for the first time since they met in the 2010 Elite Eight, a game that Duke won on its way to the national championship.

Both programs have changed enormously since then. Duke entered into the one-and-done era after that season and Mike Krzyzewski retired the season before last. Meanwhile, Scott Drew has done a brilliant job rebuilding Baylor from the flaming mess that Dave Bliss left behind. His national championship team in 2021, which absolutely annihilated Gonzaga, was honestly incredible.

It’s not easy to get to that level and it’s even harder to stay there. But at #10 nationally, Baylor is no slouch, and no easy out.

Well, they were for Michigan State on Saturday when the Spartans ran out to a 22-7 lead and never looked back, winning 88-64.

That was not good news for Duke.

The Bears have not played a brutal schedule, with the best opponents being Auburn, Florida, Seton Hall and the Spartans, so it’s hard to know just how good they are.

So far though it’s a team with solid guards and superb three point shooting: Baylor is hitting a collective 42.1 percent from deep, although Michigan State held the Bears to 31.6 percent from behind the line and forced 21 turnovers.

That’s obviously an anomaly so far this season.

Baylor’s primary rotation goes eight deep and while two guys haven't taken a single three, the top five players minute wise are hitting between 37.3 percent and 44 percent and that is outstanding.

Duke by contrast sees its starters, counting Tyrese Proctor who has been out, shooting...well, comparably, really.

Kyle Filipowski hits 32.4 percent, Jeremy Roach is at 50 percent, Proctor 32.4 percent, and Jared McCain 44.2 percent. Mark Mitchell, who is in the worst slump seen at Duke since Wendell Moore’s dreadful slump in his sophomore season, is shooting just 5.9 percent.

Go down a bit more though and you see Caleb Foster hitting 38.5 percent, Jaylen Blakes 40 percent and TJ Power 50 percent.

Baylor’s primary players are RayJ Dennis, an 6-2 sophomore, Ja’Kobe Walter, a 6-5 freshman, Jayden Nunn, a 6-4 junior, Jalen Bridges, a 6-9 senior and Langston Love, a 6-5 sophomore.

Yves Missy, a 7-0 freshman, Josh Ojianwuna, 6-10 and also a freshman and Caleb Lohner, a 6-8 senior, round out the rotation.

There are a lot of ifs for Duke in this game.

Mark Mitchell is potentially an excellent defender but he plays like he might have the - well, it’s bad luck to say that. But he may be there and will have to fight his way out.

In Duke’s last game, Kyle Filipowski unleashed a much more advanced version of his offensive skill set. He had eight assists, for instance, and some of his passes were really impressive.

Unfortunately he also had seven turnovers, but if he can cut that down, Duke may have one of its best passing big men in a long time, perhaps the best since Danny Ferry.

What Duke may or may not have is Proctor. Hurt in the opening minutes of the Georgia Tech game on December 2nd, he has been out since and we believe he’s listed as questionable for this game.

The good news is that his absence has allowed freshmen Foster and McCain to accelerate their development. Foster has taken over at point and he’s done well. McCain is more aggressive offensively and he, too, has been playing better. Foster has shown more daring and his own aggressiveness. That’s never been a problem for McCain but he’s become a more complete player recently.

The other thing that Duke has really improved on lately is ball movement. This team has the potential to have superb ball movement.

Obviously getting Mitchell out of the doldrums is a big deal. We’ve seen him play well offensively, just not lately. We hadn’t realized it, but Mitchell hasn’t hit a three pointer in over a month. Worse, he’s been missing a ton of chippies. You can see it’s bothering him and he’s pressing. Hitting a three would probably do him a world of good.

We’ve gone this far without mentioning Jaylen Blakes, aka Agent Chaos, and that’s not right.

Blakes is not always a great offensive player, and he doesn’t have to be. His primary role on this team is going to be as an inverse Vinnie Johnson: a defensive microwave. For those who don’t know, Johnson was a superb player off the bench for the championship era Detroit Pistons, celebrated for his ability to heat up in a hurry, hence the Microwave nickname. Incidentally, he went to Baylor.

Defense is going to be a huge key in this game. With Dennis hitting 42.9 percent of his threes, Walter 37.3, Nunn 44 percent, Bridges 43.9 percent and Love 41.2 percent, Blakes could be incredibly important in this game.

So could Duke’s defense in general. Proctor would be a big help of course, but Roach and Mitchell are also excellent defenders and that would go a long way towards reining Baylor in.

This won’t be an easy game and Michigan State probably complicated things. But it is still a game that Duke can win.

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