Next Up - NC State In The 2024 ACC Tournament

As the Blue Devils and the Wolfpack get a relatively quick rematch

Date 3/14 || Time 7:00 || Venue Capitol One Arena || Video ESPN

NC State eliminated Syracuse in the ACC Tournament Wednesday, which means they’ll be Duke’s first opponent in D.C. Thursday.

The teams played once this season, in Raleigh, and while it was a close game for the first 28:00 minutes or so, the Blue Devils pulled away late to win 79-64.

Duke did a great job in that game of denying State’s three point shooters, limiting the Pack to just nine attempts of which they hit three.

DJ Burns had a good night, hitting 27 on 12-19 from the floor (no threes for Burns, who has not taken a single three in five seasons between Winthrop and State).

Duke is coming off the disappointing Senior Day loss to UNC and it’s always hard to know how a team will react after something like that.

And of course, except for Jeremy Roach, Jaylen Blakes and Ryan Young, this is still a very young team. Duke features five sophomores, one of whom is redshirting in Jaden Schutt and another, Christian Reeves, who almost certainly is, and four freshmen.

People tend to forget that.

When you factor that youth against NC State’s having already played twice, you have many possible outcomes but two that are more likely. Either a) State is a bit more acclimated and has long since gotten past any nerves, or b) the Wolfpack is a bit run down playing their third game in three days.

In this regard, Burns could be a problem. He’s a wonderful player, but only Zion Williamson can haul around that kind of weight without getting exhausted. Jim Boeheim alluded to this, comparing Burns to former NBA player Zach Randolph, but pointing out that Randolph, while always thick like Burns, got himself into far better shape than Burns, who usually doesn’t play much more than 24-26 minutes, has been able to do.

He played just 11 against Louisville and 24 against Syracuse.

The Pack was without DJ Horne against Louisville and for whatever reason, the third DJ, Dennis Parker, Jr., hasn’t been playing much lately. He missed the Pitt game with an illness which could certainly explain it. We’re not speculating here, we have no idea what his illness was, but if it was something like mono or Covid, you could certainly understand why he’s not played much.

It’s impossible to predict these things, but if Horne is limited, Parker is still recuperating and Burns is playing three straight days, that’s a lot to overcome. However, we’ve seen players do it before. Mateen Cleaves led Michigan State to the national title in 2000 while limping.

Duke has been there with mono - Mike Dunleavy and Shavlik Randolph both had it and it wrecked their seasons and, to a large extent, Duke’s each time. When the Blue Devils played Maryland while Randolph was recovering, you could see him struggling just to run up court.

But as we said, we don’t know what Parker’s status is.

As far as Duke goes, it’s good to get past the circus of the Carolina loss. As noted, this is still a young team that relies quite heavily on sophomores Kyle Filipowski, Mark Mitchell and Tyrese Proctor. Jared McCain has shown that he’s a gamer with a great competitive instinct. At the beginning of the season we suggested that he was sort of a mix between Kobe Bryant and Jose Alvarado. He’s not in Bryant’s class athletically, but he has a similar mentality. That guy is a worker and a winner.

And the Alvarado side shows up when he works the boards or picks off passes. He’s the best sort of gym rat. You don’t know what will happen of course, but we could see him going off in a major way, not least of all if he wants to make a point about who he thinks should have been ACC Rookie Of The Year.

As always with State, they’re going to be a hard-nosed team. Duke won in Raleigh basically because it opted to shut down the perimeter game. That works if you take care of the ball but if we get into the thing we saw last year where State just takes it away from Duke and scores tons in transition, it really doesn’t matter if you guard the three pointers well or not. They’re denying you shots and scoring on the other end. It’s kind of a four-point play if you think about it.

These teams played quite recently, just 12 days ago. And while you can’t say that Duke has changed a great deal in that time, we have seen some interesting things.

First, obviously Caleb Foster is still in a boot and won’t be playing. And second, both Sean Stewart and TJ Power have shown some great flashes. Stewart brings a level of athleticism to Duke’s front court that no one else can offer. We love Ryan Young and how hard he works, but clearly, he has athletic limitations.

Stewart really doesn’t have many at all. He did get four fouls against NC State in Raleigh, but if he learned from that and can stay a bit away from the burly Burns, he could be a big factor.

Have you noticed the big change in Power?

It’s not that he’s playing with more confidence, though he certainly is. And he’s always had a golden arm. The guy can really shoot. And his defense has certainly improved.

It’s none of those things.

It’s that he’s gotten noticeably stronger.

Over the summer and for much of the season, Power was not willing, possibly not able, to mix it up inside. He spent nearly all of his time on the perimeter.

Lately he’s popped up in the lane and he’s been willing to bang. If he can get himself up to 225-230 next season, he’s going to be a radically different player. Nick Horvath isn’t a natural comparison exactly but he’s interesting. He came to Duke as a very skinny guy who could shoot. On his Senior Day, he came out and flexed and why not? As a senior, the guy was absolutely cut. He became a a very powerful inside defender and rebounder for the Devils.

Power’s greatest gift is shooting and possibly passing although we haven’t seen much of that yet. The guy was an outstanding pitcher in high school though so as his career advances, we expect we’ll see him doing some long inbounds when they’re called for and as he developed, there's no reason why he can’t become an outstanding passer too.

Anyway, both of them are of course still freshmen who have played limited minutes but we could see either of them, or possibly both, growing up a lot in March.

The winner of this game will advance to play the winner of Virginia vs. Boston College in the semifinals on Friday.