Isaiah Evans – Syndication Server

Don’t look now, but Cooper Flagg and the Duke Blue Devils may be turning a corner on offense

In a scary development for the rest of the basketball world, Duke has put together its best two-game offensive run of the season.

For the first seven weeks of the college basketball season, the conversation about the Duke Blue Devils felt repetitive: If the offense just gets a little better, look out.

The Blue Devils have held each of their first 13 opponents under 78 points. In fact, only the Kentucky Wildcats, Kansas Jayhawks, and Auburn Tigers scored more than 65 points against Duke thus far, and Virginia Tech became the third team this season to shoot better than 40% from the floor against the Blue Devils on Tuesday.

Freshman superstar [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] averages three combined steals and blocks per game, Syracuse transfer Maliq Brown seems to break up an offensive play every five minutes, and no one can get around 7-foot-2 center Khaman Maluach. With Duke’s height and athleticism, opponents must execute perfectly in the paint or on the perimeter for an open look.

Yet, despite entering the 2024-25 season with loads of shooting talent, the Duke offense remained a little frustrating through the first six weeks. After averaging 98.0 points per game against Maine and Army in the openers, the Blue Devils only produced 80 points twice in their next nine games. One of those standout games came against the Auburn Tigers, an important distinction, but Duke also failed to crack 30 points in the first half against Incarnate Word or George Mason.

The biggest culprit? A baffling cold spell from the team’s 3-point talent. Five-star freshman [autotag]Kon Knueppel[/autotag] missed all eight of his threes against Kansas and went 4/18 (22.2%) from December 4-17. Purdue transfer Mason Gillis, who made 46.8% of his triples last year, went 4/24 (16.7%) over a 10-game span, and veteran guard Tyrese Proctor even finished 2/11 (18.2%) against Louisville and Incarnate Word.

It all added up to Duke averaging 73.0 points per game from November 22 through December 17, equivalent to the nation’s No. 251 scoring offense. Over the final five games of that run, the Blue Devils made 31.4% of their 3-pointers despite routinely finding open space.

But the last four halves of basketball have given the Cameron Crazies something they lacked since the first weeks of November: offensive hope.

The Blue Devils went to Atlanta on December 21 and proceeded to score 41 points before halftime, a loud reversal of recent form. Knueppel finally converted on the team’s spacing and drained four of his eight 3-pointers, ending the game with 18 points, and Duke ended the afternoon with a season-high 56.4% field goal percentage.

After a 10-day break, it would have been reasonable for home fans to expect rust against Virginia Tech. After a quiet start, however, Duke erupted yet again for 80 points over the final 33 minutes. Flagg, who started the year 8/36 (22.2%) from beyond the arc, knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, and freshman [autotag]Isaiah Evans[/autotag] made four of his seven looks to continue his impressive form.

The Blue Devils ended Tuesday’s game with 88 points, the first time they’ve surpassed 80 points in consecutive games since the Maine-Army run to open the year. They’ve made 21 of their 54 3-pointers (38.9%) over the last 80 minutes, their best two-game shooting stretch since the road trip against Arizona and Kansas, and they made more than 50% of their shots from the floor twice in a row for the first time in 2024-25.

Several good factors appear to be converging for Duke on the offensive end. Flagg’s high usage made a dent in his shooting efficiency early on, but the freshman put together his most accurate night of the year against Virginia Tech (64.3%) and he’s 5/12 (41.7%) from distance in his last three games. Evans, a 52% 3-point shooter, has averaged 16.2 minutes over the last six games after only appearing in four of Duke’s first seven. Knueppel, Proctor, and Gillis haven’t all fully emerged from their cold spells, but Gillis went two-for-four against the Hokies in a promising step forward.

There are still growing pains left for this young Blue Devils team, but there’s a lot of time to grow between now and March. If even one or two of the aforementioned trends continue and this Duke offense gets marginally better, folks in Durham can let their minds wander to San Antonio and the Final Four.

Who leads the Duke basketball team in points per minute so far this season?

Who leads the Blue Devils in points per minute through the first 12 games this season?

No sport can be completely distilled into mathematical formulas, but basketball benefits from a number of ways to quantify performance. One of the most interesting ways to measure efficiency, for example, is to calculate how many points a player scores per minute on the floor.

[autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] leads the Blue Devils with 16.3 points per game, and the top-ranked freshman has obviously been the focal point of the offense in year one. He’s also the only player on the roster averaging more than 30 minutes per game. While that volume always limits efficiency, it’s a fun thought experiment to see which Blue Devils have made the most of their time on the floor.

Some of the math involved shouldn’t surprise any Duke basketball fans. This metric favors freshman microwave [autotag]Isaiah Evans[/autotag] more than anyone considering his small role and emphatic green light. Anyone who makes six first-half threes against the Auburn Tigers off the bench will probably dominate per-minute scoring metrics, and a 51.2% rate from behind the arc will boost anyone’s math.

Per-minute scoring splits also punish veteran forward [autotag]Maliq Brown[/autotag] more than anyone else. The Syracuse transfer can get the ball in the hoop, but he’s at his best on the defensive end of the floor. His 1.9 steals per game lead the roster, and he constantly disrupts opposing offenses with his deflections, so he gets a lot of playing time without a major offensive focus.

But some of the math might surprise the Cameron Crazies. Freshman center [autotag]Khaman Maluach[/autotag] got off to a somewhat slow start (by Olympian standards) with 7.0 points through the first nine games, but a reasonable minute-management program and an increased pick-and-roll presence over the last two weeks flung him back toward the top of the metric.

Nine different Blue Devils have played at least 100 minutes this season. Here’s how they rank in points per minute as of December 22.

Player	Points	Minute	Points/Minute
Isaiah Evans	78	123	0.634
Cooper Flagg	196	368	0.533
Khaman Malauch	101	222	0.455
Kon Knueppel	146	358	0.408
Tyrese Proctor	135	349	0.387
Caleb Foster	89	236	0.377
Sion James	94	250	0.376
Mason Gillis	43	168	0.256
Maliq Brown	32	225	0.142

What’s going on with Duke basketball from behind the 3-point line?

After a torrid start from 3-point range, the Blue Devils have made fewer than 33% of their triples in three of their last four games.

The Duke Blue Devils have won their past four games for an 8-2 start to the 2024-25 men’s basketball season, but if any Cameron Crazies have sensed something wrong about [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] and his teammates on the offensive end, there’s an easy culprit on the stat sheet.

The Blue Devils started the season with at least 96 in each of their first two games, but they’ve only surpassed 76 points twice in the last eight. While four top-25 opponents and the conference opener might be responsible for a large chunk of that regression, a reliable part of the offense has abandoned this Duke team: the 3-point shot.

Through the first six games of the season, Duke knocked down 37.7% of its 3-point shots even with a dismal 4/24 showing against the Kentucky Wildcats. The Blue Devils finished each of the other five games in that sample with at least a 36% clip, including three games north of 40%, and that stretch included a road game at Arizona and a neutral-site game against Kansas.

In the four games since? That percentage has dropped to 31.0% despite a 9/22 night against the Auburn Tigers, and if five-star freshman Isaiah Evans gets removed from the data, it plummets to 25.6%.

Of course, it’s silly to pretend Evans hasn’t been a bright spot. The North Carolina native knocked down six first-half threes against the Tigers to pull Duke back ahead, and he made four more in the second half against Incarnate Word on Tuesday night. He’s averaged 8.7 points in 12.9 minutes per game this season, and he’s made exactly half of his shots from behind the arc despite averaging five attempts per night.

But it’s reasonable to question whether the other sharpshooters on the roster might cost Duke a game in the near future. Flagg was never pitched as a marksman, but it still counts when he shoots, and he’s 1/12 (8.3%) since the Seattle game began. Sophomore Caleb Foster and Purdue transfer Mason Gillis, two 40% shooters in 2023-24, have combined to go 5/19 (26.3%) in that four-game stretch, and freshman scorer Kon Knueppel is 4/14 (28.6%) over the last three.

Perhaps there’s some deeper pyschological or fundemantal reason for the sudden regression, but to the untrained eye, it seems like the Blue Devils have taken the right shots. They’ve been disciplined with their ball movement, players take advantage of off-ball designs and screens, and they look decisive when they finally get a window. And yet the ball won’t find the basket.

It’s never the popular answer, especially this early in the season, but the most likely explanation is that this is a fluky four-game run for a team with exceptional shooting talent. It’s worth monitoring against George Mason next Tuesday, however, and if the issue persists much longer than that, it’ll be hard to keep the alarm bells quiet.

The best Duke basketball photos from Tuesday’s win over Incarnate Word

Check out the best Duke basketball photos from Tuesday’s game against Incarnate Word.

Tuesday’s gritty victory over Incarnate Word served as a solid reminder of the depth in Duke’s freshman class.

The Blue Devils struggled to pull away from the Cardinals for the first 15 minutes as superstar freshman [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] made just two of his eight shots. The superstar forward anchored last week’s victories with 20-point double-doubles, but as he struggled to generate similar production on the offensive end against UIW, Duke looked a little stuck in the mud.

Two other first-year players stepped up to pull the team out of slump. Center [autotag]Khaman Maluach[/autotag] scored 10 points in the final 6:09 of the opening half, part of his team-leading 17 for the night, and [autotag]Isaiah Evans[/autotag] rattled home four 3-pointers off the bench after the break.

It all came together in the end for the home team, and when time expired, the Blue Devils could celebrate a fourth straight win.

Check out some of the best photos from an up-and-down night at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Duke basketball pushes through slow start against Incarnate Word for fourth straight win

Duke’s first half against Incarnate Word on Tuesday night wouldn’t win any beauty pageants, but a win is a win for the Blue Devils.

[autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] and the Blue Devils didn’t earn any style points for their first-half performance against the Incarnate Word Cardinals on Tuesday night, but the Duke men’s basketball team eventually pulled it together for the 72-46 home victory.

After last week’s victories over the Auburn Tigers and Louisville Cardinals, Duke seemed like a runaway train with plenty of track to gain steam before the end of the calendar year. Besides, entering Tuesday’s game, UIW ranked 350th out of 364 teams in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency rating, and the Cardinals’ opponents accumulated an effective field goal percentage of 53.8%. If the Blue Devils could drop 84 points on the undefeated Tigers, surely there would be carnage in store at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

But college basketball, in the most predictable fashion possible, remains entirely unpredictable. The Blue Devils took 14 shots from the floor over the first nine minutes and only made four of them, and Duke didn’t break into double-digits until the 13:39 mark of the opening half.

Flagg, fresh off two straight 20-point double-doubles, looked unable to find a rhythm on the offensive end. The 6-foot-9 forward missed six of his eight first-half attempts, including a trio of relatively open 3-pointers, to only put four points on the board through the break. The normally reliable Blue Devils missed the mark on 11 of their 13 triples as Tyrese Proctor and Kon Knueppel combined to go two-for-seven.

Luckily for the Blue Devils, freshman 7-footer [autotag]Khaman Maluach[/autotag] showed up to work. The center from South Sudan needed to play a larger role as forward Maliq Brown recovered from a toe injury, and Maluach didn’t shrink from that responsibility. He took advantage of his size all night, rolling toward the rim for lobs and bullying the Cardinals in the pick-and-roll game.

Maluach pulled the Blue Devils ahead through sheer willpower in the final six minutes of the half. He made three baskets and four free throws over the final 6:09 of the half, powering a 12-7 run to create a 28-21 advantage and give Scheyer a little breathing room.

Thankfully for the Cameron Crazies in attendance, the offense seemed to figure something out in the locker room. Maluach made a contested bucket on the opening possession, giving him three more quick points and starting a quick 11-0 run for the home team.

[autotag]Isaiah Evans[/autotag], who took over the first half against the Tigers last week, put on a similar show after the break. The five-star freshman showcased the same fearless shot selection and off-ball movement that haunted Auburn, finding free space on the court and getting 3-pointers off even with hands in his face, for 14 second-half points.

While the offense needed to wake up over the course of the, Duke’s stifling defense never skipped a beat. The Cardinals could have easily taken an early lead if they weren’t getting held to 3/18 from the floor over the first 12 minutes. UIW entered Tuesday’s game making more than 41% of its 3-pointers, but the Blue Devils never gave their opponents the space to breath in a 5/23 (21.7%) display from distance.

Duke, now 8-2 on the season, gets a full week off before a home game against George Mason on December 17.

Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl says Jon Scheyer ‘doesn’t get enough credit’

After he and the Tigers came up short in Durham on Wednesday, Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl praised Jon Scheyer’s work with the Duke Blue Devils.

The Duke men’s basketball team picked up one of the best wins of the 2024-25 season on Wednesday night, an 84-78 home victory over the undefeated Auburn Tigers. According to the opposing head coach after the game, Blue Devils coach [autotag]Jon Scheyer[/autotag] played a large role in the outcome.

Auburn coach Bruce Pearl stopped by a Field of 68 live stream to speak with basketball reporter Jeff Goodman after Wednesday’s game, and he offered nothing but praise for [autotag]Mike Krzyzewski[/autotag]’s successor.

“Jon Scheyer doesn’t get enough credit for the job he does,” Pearl told Goodman. “They run really good stuff that’s hard to guard, and they got us in some mismatches.”

Five-star freshman [autotag]Isaiah Evans[/autotag] came off the bench and made six 3-pointers in the first half on Wednesday thanks to some well-designed misdirection, and the Blue Devils held Auburn star Johni Broome to five points in the opening half after he’d averaged 21.7 over his previous three appearances.

The story of the season will always center around freshman superstar [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag], however, and he delivered again on Wednesday. The 17-year-old forward scored 22 points and added 11 rebounds, four assists, three steals, and two blocks, becoming the first freshman this century to lead his team in all five categories during a top-five win.

“They find ways to get Cooper in against your guards,” Pearl said, another testament to Scheyer’s play designs.

Before Wednesday’s loss at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Tigers had taken down the Houston Cougars, Iowa State Cyclones, and North Carolina Tar Heels during their 7-0 start.

The best Duke basketball photos from Wednesday’s win over No. 2 Auburn

Check out the best photos from Wednesday’s game between the Duke Blue Devils and Auburn Tigers.

The Duke Blue Devils notched their biggest win of the season on Wednesday night with an 84-78 triumph over the undefeated Auburn Tigers at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Superstar freshman [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] anchored the second half with five buckets en route to a 22-point night, his third 20-point performance against a top-25 team already this year. However, fellow five-star prospect [autotag]Isaiah Evans[/autotag] stole the show with six first-half 3-pointers.

Neither player came through quite like third-year guard [autotag]Tyrese Proctor[/autotag], however. The Australian knocked down a pair of second-half triples, the latter of which came after a loose ball with less than five seconds left on the shot clock, to turn one-possession leads into comfortable margins.

Auburn star Johni Broome entered Wednesday’s game averaging 23.0 points over his last five games, but the Blue Devils held him to just 20 after he made two of his nine shots from the floor before halftime.

Check out the best photos from Wednesday’s wild win in Durham.

NBA superstar shouts out Duke freshman Isaiah Evans after his big game against Auburn

Duke basketball freshman Isaiah Evans exploded in the first half against Auburn, and one All-NBA star let him know he was watching.

[autotag]Isaiah Evans[/autotag], a five-star freshman on the Duke men’s basketball team, played the best 11 minutes of his collegiate career thus far on Wednesday night.

Evans subbed in against the Auburn Tigers with 12:40 left to play in the opening half of the midweek battle, and he knocked down four 3-pointers in the next six minutes to drag the Blue Devils back into the game.

Auburn entered the game with an undefeated 7-0 record, and the Tigers opened the game with a 13-2 run. By the time Evans knocked down his fourth triple, the Blue Devils led by two points.

Evans made two more 3-pointers before the break, giving him 18 first-half points on nothing but daggers. It’s hard for any first-year Blue Devil to steal the spotlight from superstar teammate [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag], but the North Carolina native did exactly that on national television, and one of the NBA’s biggest stars certainly noticed.

Memphis Grizzlies forward Ja Morant, a two-time All-Star and former All-NBA Second Team member at just 25 years old, shouted Evans out on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) my posting his name with some exclamation points during the opening run.

Evans is now averaging 9.4 points and shooting 50.0% from 3-point range in five appearances this season.

Duke basketball rides Isaiah Evans’ breakout game to home victory over No. 2 Auburn

Duke picked up a signature victory over No. 2 Auburn on Wednesday night thanks to a first-half explosion from freshman Isaiah Evans.

Isaiah Evans wanted the ball.

Duke basketball superstar [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] had the ball in transition against the No. 2 Auburn Tigers on Wednesday night, and despite a two-to-one disadvantage in the paint, the best prospect in the country could surely find a way to score. Who would want to take the ball out of his hands?

Evans would.

The North Carolina native started clapping as soon as he crossed halfcourt, and after a moment, Flagg noticed him finding a pocket of space behind the 3-point line.

Evans fired off the shot instantly, and the Cameron Crazies erupted when it rattled through the hoop for his third 3-pointer in two minutes.

Evans made six of his eight 3-point looks in the first 20 minutes for an 18-point night, powering the Blue Devils to an 84-78 victory over the previously undefeated Tigers.

Just like last week’s loss to No. 1 Kansas, the Blue Devils looked entirely outmatched for the first four minutes. Auburn, fresh off a Maui Invitational victory that included wins over the Iowa State Cyclones, North Carolina Tar Heels, and Memphis Tigers, looked ready to pick up right where it left off in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Miles Kelly, a Georgia Tech transfer who helped the Yellow Jackets upset the Blue Devils last December, scored three of the Tigers’ first five baskets of the game, including back-to-back 3-pointers that opened up a 13-2 lead with 16:20 left in the first.

Duke looked physically outmatched and frustrated early on, missing six of its first seven shots. However, just like the Kansas game, the Blue Devils quickly shook off the offensive cobwebs when they started creating transition possessions. After Auburn opened the game five-for-six from the floor, Duke’s top-ranked defense began to clamp down. The Tigers missed eight of their next nine, and with the ensuing rebounds letting the Blue Devils take advantage of their athleticism, Duke began to stack up points.

The best offense over the first 20 minutes came from two unlikely places within the rotation, a pair of North Carolina natives.

Sophomore guard [autotag]Caleb Foster[/autotag] started each of the first seven games this season, but after he averaged 8.6 points and made 30.8% of his 3-point tries in 22.4 minutes per game, he ceded his spot in the first five to Tulane transfer Sion James. Despite the demotion on paper, however, Foster made three of his five shots for a nine-point opening half, including a knockdown 3-pointer in the last two minutes.

The hero of the opening half, however, was Evans. The only five-star member of the 2024 recruiting class who didn’t play against Duke’s previous three ranked opponents, Evans checked into the game with 12:40 left before the break.

Within 100 seconds of game time, he’d knocked down a 3-pointer, a smooth catch-and-shoot roller off a screen. Three minutes later, a defensive miscommunication left him wide-open for another triple, and he managed to sneak into the corner for another on the very next possession.

Evans seemed to grow stronger with each progressive triple, calling for that fourth 3-pointer from Flagg less than 90 seconds after the third make. His 18-first-half points helped open up a 43-36 lead at the midway point.

Auburn superstar Johni Broome entered Wednesday night off four consecutive 20-point performances, and after a five-point first half, the 6-foot-10 forward began to shake off the cobwebs after the break. The Tigers managed to scheme him away from Duke forward Maliq Brown, who held Broome just two-for-nine to start the game, and Broome started getting to the basket more frequently. He notched 11 points in the first nine minutes of the half, and Auburn closed within four.

Third-year Duke guard [autotag]Tyrese Proctor[/autotag] knocked down the biggest shots of the night, however. The third-year guard got an open 3-point look in the corner with nine-and-a-half minutes on the clock, but instead of firing up a contested shot, he faked out the closing defender and side-stepped for a wide-open triple that put Duke ahead by seven.

Five minutes later, a late-possession turnover from Flagg spelled disaster for the Blue Devils. The ball rolled around near half-court before Proctor managed to bat it away from the Auburn defense, preventing an easy transition bucket.

With less than one second on the shot clock, Proctor lofted up a 30-footer and somehow connected, a five-point swing to keep the Blue Devils in front 73-68.

Flagg, like he did against the Kentucky Wildcats and Arizona Wildcats, made tough basket after tough basket in the second half. He scored 16 points after the break, including a tough and-one midway through the half to slow down a tough Auburn run.

The superstar 17-year-old ended up with 22 points, his third 20-point performance in four ranked games, on top of 11 rebounds, four assists, three steals, and two blocks.

The Blue Devils, now 6-2 for the season with a pair of quad-one wins, start their ACC schedule on Sunday with a road battle against Louisville.

Duke basketball cruises to a bounce-back victory over the Seattle Redhawks

Despite a lackluster shooting performance, the Duke Blue Devils easily put away the Seattle Redhawks on Friday night for their fifth win.

The Duke Blue Devils took care of business against the Seattle Redhawks on Friday night, putting together another impressive defensive performance at home in the 70-48 victory, but the offense left some points on the board with a massive ranked battle on deck.

The last time the Duke Blue Devils returned to Cameron Indoor Stadium after a neutral-site loss this season, they held the Wofford Terriers to 35 points, a program record in the shot clock era. While Duke didn’t match the offensive output from that 51-point victory, the defense returned to form on Friday.

The Redhawks only managed 25 points in the first half after they made six of their 23 shots, and that was their more productive section of the game. The Blue Devils held Seattle completely scoreless for the first eight minutes after the break as veteran presences like Sion James and Maliq Brown harassed Seattle ballhandlers and gave them minimal open looks.

The Duke defense ended Friday’s game with four blocks and 12 steals, and the Blue Devils ended up with 44 rebounds to Seattle’s 37 as they allowed six second-chance points.

While the Blue Devils looked elite once again on the protective end, the scoring side took its time shaking off the cobwebs. It took them nearly 12 minutes to reach 20 points for the game thanks to a two-for-nine start from behind the arc, and Duke connected on just four of its first 17 looks from distance.

In four games at Cameron Indoor Stadium so far this season, all against unranked teams, the Blue Devils have averaged 35.3 3-point attempts per game against just 28.3 2-point looks, a staggering split. While Friday’s 10/36 (27.8%) performance was just the second time Duke made fewer than 36.0% of its triples, the early variance from such a shot selection has created some deceptive slow starts just like Friday.

Five-star freshman Isaiah Evans offered a bright spot for the home crowd, however. The North Carolina native has been overshadowed by his three teammates who won starting roles over the offseason, but he finished Friday’s game with nine points in a season-high 17 minutes thanks to a pair of 3-pointers and a breakaway dunk.

While he’s only played against unranked opponents at home so far this season, Evans is averaging 9.7 points in 12.7 minutes per game over his last three appearances.

[autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag], who punctuated his return to Durham with a two-handed dunk in the opening half, ended with a ho-hum nine points, nine rebounds, and seven assists, a stat line he’s normalized remarkably quickly.

He and his teammates need a productive week of practice, however, because the undefeated Auburn Tigers come to town this coming Wednesday for the Blue Devils’ fourth top-25 battle in six games.