Tag: Seattle RedHawks

Duke basketball stays second in ESPN BPI rankings after Seattle win

See where the Duke Blue Devils are in the ESPN Basketball Power Index after their Friday win over Seattle.

After the Duke men’s basketball team took care of business for a 70-48 home win over Seattle on Friday night, the Blue Devils remain second in the ESPN Basketball Power Index as of Saturday morning.

Duke completely erased the Redhawks’ offense at Cameron Indoor Stadium, letting Seattle make fewer than 22% of its attempts to hold its second straight home opponent under 50 total points. The Blue Devils haven’t allowed more than 77 points in a game this season, and their 10.3 defensive power index rating sits behind only the Houston Cougars and Tennessee Volunteers.

The offense didn’t make much of a statement on Friday night, however. The Blue Devils connected on just 10 of their 36 3-point looks, their second-worst showing of the season thus far, and they’ve failed to reach 75 points in four of their last five games. Duke’s 11.7 offensive power index rating still keeps them fifth, but it sits 26th in the KenPom adjusted offensive efficiency rating, which gives less weight to preseason expectations.

The undefeated Auburn Tigers come to Cameron Indoor Stadium with momentum after their Maui Invitational win, a run that included a victory over the North Carolina Tar Heels. However, despite the form, Duke still sits above Auburn in the BPI rankings as the Tigers are fourth overall.

The Tar Heels, with three losses in seven games, dropped eight spots to 14th.

Where is Duke basketball in the KenPom rankings after the Seattle victory?

Check out where the Duke Blue Devils stand in the KenPom efficiency rankings after Friday’s win over Seattle.

The Duke Blue Devils picked up their fifth win of the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season on Friday night, a 70-48 victory over the Seattle Redhawks that kept them within the top five of the KenPom adjusted efficiency rankings.

As of Saturday morning, Duke sits fifth in the popular analytics website’s rankings behind only the Auburn Tigers, Tennessee Volunteers, Gonzaga Bulldogs, and Houston Cougars.

The Blue Devils haven’t allowed more than 77 points in a game so far this season, and they lead KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency rating with 87.3 adjusted points allowed per 100 possessions. Seattle made just 21.3% of its shots on Friday, and Duke held Wofford to 35 points in its previous home performance.

With 116.9 points per 100 possessions on the offensive end, KenPom ranks Duke as the No. 26 offense in the nation.

The Tigers, who come to Durham on Wednesday for Duke’s fourth top-25 matchup of the season, won the Maui Invitational this week after they swept Iowa State, North Carolina, and Memphis. Pair that trio of statement wins with Auburn’s victory over Houston, and the Tigers look like the clear best team in the country.

The Tar Heels, 4-3 for the season after two losses in Maui, dropped down to 17th.

The best Duke basketball photos from Friday’s win over Seattle

Check out the best photos from the Duke basketball victory over Seattle on Friday night.

The Duke men’s basketball team played its fourth game of the 2024-25 season at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Friday night, and for the fourth time, the Blue Devils walked away with a victory.

Duke held the Seattle Redhawks’ offense down for a 70-48 win, the second straight home game in which the Blue Devils surrendered fewer than 50 points. Superstar freshman [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] finished his afternoon with nine points (all before halftime), nine rebounds, and seven assists, but the biggest highlight came on a two-handed breakaway dunk in the opening half.

While no Duke player finished with more than 13 points, five different Blue Devils added at least nine points to the effort. However, with a Wednesday battle against the undefeated Auburn Tigers on the horizon, head coach Jon Scheyer might want to focus on the 10/36 (27.8%) performance from 3-point range.

Check out the best Duke basketball photos from Friday’s game below.

How many points did Cooper Flagg score against the Seattle Redhawks?

Here’s how Duke freshman phenom Cooper Flagg performed against the Seattle Redhawks.

[autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] played his first game at Cameron Indoor Stadium in nearly two weeks on Friday night, and while it won’t erase Tuesday’s loss to No. 1 Kansas, he still did enough to help push the Blue Devils back into the win column.

Duke struggled to convert its 3-point attempts against the Seattle Redhawks, finishing below 30% from behind the arc for just the second time this season, but a stellar defensive performance helped ensure those shooting struggles didn’t matter. The Blue Devils held Seattle to 21.3% from the field, blocked four shots, and ended up with a season-high 12 steals to hold their second straight home opponent under 50 points.

Here’s a recap of Flagg’s seventh game of the season.

Cooper Flagg points scored vs. Seattle:

Flagg finished with nine points, all of which came before halftime after he sat out the final seven-and-a-half minutes. While he made just two of his seven shot attempts, he converted five of his seven free throws and tacked on nine rebounds and seven assists for one of his most balanced games yet.

Did Duke win?

The Blue Devils won 70-48 thanks to another great defensive performance. Duke has now held its past two opponents at Cameron Indoor Stadium to 83 combined points.

Cooper Flagg’s next game:

The Duke Blue Devils will return to the court on Wednesday night for a home game against the undefeated Auburn Tigers.

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.

Duke basketball phenom Cooper Flagg throws down two-handed dunk at Cameron Indoor Stadium

In his first game at Cameron Indoor Stadium in two weeks, Duke basketball phenom Cooper Flagg reunited with home fans with another huge dunk.

Thanks to a lengthy road trip against Arizona and Kansas, the Cameron Crazies went 13 days without a home Duke basketball game to attend. Freshman phenom [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] rewarded them for their patience during the first half of Friday’s game against Seattle.

With the Blue Devils building a double-digit lead against the Redhawks near the end of the opening frame, Tulane transfer Sion James grabbed the ball right out of Seattle forward Viktor Rajkovic’s hands near the half-court line.

James took a few seconds to gather the ball before lofting a pass to Flagg, who’d sprinted down the court with a free run at the hoop. The 17-year-old star forward gathered the ball in both hands, took a single step, and cocked it back over his head for a dunk that brought all of Durham to its feet.

Friday is just Flagg’s seventh collegiate game, and the first-year Duke forward has already made a habit of thunderous slams on his home court. He finished the opening 20 minutes against Seattle with nine points, four rebounds, and two assists.

Duke basketball officially scheduled to play the Kansas Jayhawks in Vegas this November

The Blue Devils and Jayhawks will play one game of a doubleheader in Las Vegas on November 26 as part of the 2024-25 season.

A month after reports first surfaced of a potential basketball game between Duke and Kansas during the 2024-25 season, ESPN officially revealed The Las Vegas Showdown on Thursday.

The Blue Devils and the Jayhawks will feature as part of a doubleheader in the famed city on November 26. The game will be played at T-Mobile Arena, normally home to the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights.

The game immediately becomes one of the most anticipated on the 2024-25 schedule. Self’s Jayhawks won the national championship in 2022, and after a 23-11 season and a second-round exit last year, he brought back every star and welcomed Wisconsin’s AJ Storr and Alabama’s Rylan Griffen in the transfer portal.

Duke head coach Jon Scheyer, on the other hand, brings in the best recruiting class in the country and four transfers of his own, led by Tulane’s Sion James and 2023-24 Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year Mason Gillis.

ESPN bracket expert Joe Lunardi thinks these might be the two teams to beat in 2024-25. He initially had Duke as his projected No. 1 seed in his way-too-early Bracketology, but he bumped the Blue Devils for the Jayhawks in his second update.

Seattle and Furman will play each other in the second game of the back-to-back.