The Duke men’s basketball team looked like the offense that was promised against Georgia Tech on Saturday afternoon, getting 13 points from [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] on his 18th birthday in the 82-56 win.
The Blue Devils struggled to get points on the board in the first 20 minutes of its last two games, failing to score 30 points before halftime against Incarnate Word or George Mason, but water returned to level at McCamish Pavilion.
Duke made fewer than 34% of its 3-point looks in four of its last five contests, but five-star freshman Kon Knueppel helped take the lid off the basket early in Atlanta. The Wisconsin native made two of his first three looks from behind the arc, and the Blue Devils knocked down four of their first six threes as a team.
That run helped power one of the most explosive streaks of the season for the road team. Yes, Knueppel finding his 3-point form helped, but the Yellow Jackets were unable to keep themselves between Duke and the basket. Flagg got to the paint for a dunk, Tyrese Proctor carved his way through to the glass for a layup, and the hits kept coming and coming.
For a six-minute run from 17:00 to 11:00 left in the opening half, the Blue Devils made 11 of their 13 attempts from the floor, and Georgia Tech trailed by 14 on their own floor.
The home team refused to roll over, however. The Blue Devils still led by 15 with four minutes left on the clock when Georgia Tech’s Duncan Powell earned two trips to the free-throw line and made them both. Jaeden Mustaf drilled a three, and sophomore star Baye Ndongo notched five straight points for a surprising 12-2 run.
The sequence completely reversed the game, slicing the advantage to five by the break, but the vaunted Duke defense clamped down over the final 20 minutes. The Blue Devils began the weekend as KenPom’s second-ranked defense, holding three of their last five opponents under 50 points, and Georgia Tech made just seven of its 28 shots after halftime to halt its comeback effort.
The Yellow Jackets missed the mark on seven of their 10 second-half threes, and their 20 points in the closing frame helped Duke pull away for an easy win.
The Blue Devils, on the other hand, kept their shooting form through halftime. Knueppel opened the second half by floating an alley-oop up to center Khaman Maluach, prompting a two-handed slam from his 7-foot-2 classmate.
The dunk sparked a 16-2 Duke run, concluded by Maluach grabbing an offensive rebound and finding Flagg on a slashing cut. The birthday boy grabbed the ball and cocked it back in one hand for a tomahawk dunk, a proper celebration for his big day.
Flagg also grabbed four rebounds with two assists, and Knueppel led the team with 18 points after he went four-for-eight from distance. Maluach and Proctor contributed 15 and 10 points, respectively, and Duke made 56.5% (31/55) of its shots in the resounding win.
The Blue Devils now get their second 10-day break of the month with no games on the schedule until New Year’s Eve against Virginia Tech.