The Duke Blue Devils struggled to pull away from Incarnate Word on Tuesday night, clinging to a two-point lead with 6:10 left in the first half, but the eventual 72-46 victory didn’t drop them in the advanced metrics.
As of Wednesday morning, [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] and his teammates remained the third-ranked team in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency metric.
The offense took some time to wake up in Durham, but the Duke defense looked elite once again. With the Cardinals shooting just 32.1% from the floor and 21.7% from 3-point range, the Blue Devils have now held eight teams under 40% from the field and six teams under 28% from distance through 10 games.
They haven’t allowed more than 78 points in a game this season, and KenPom only credits them with 88.7 adjusted points allowed per 100 possessions to lead the entire country. In fact, the Tennessee Volunteers (89.0) and Houston Cougars (89.9) are the only other teams with a defensive rating below 92.
The Blue Devils did tumble from the offensive top 10, however. The team has made 35 of its 113 3-point efforts over the last four games, an alarming 31.0%, and that number slips to 28.6% if the Auburn Tigers victory is removed from the sample.
KenPom now considers Duke the No. 13 offense in the country, which is still the best of any ACC school.