Mike Krzyzewski tinkered Duke's lineup. The Blue Devils gave him the same end result.
Another win, another rout for No. 1 Duke.
Seth Curry, who sat out all of last season after transferring from Liberty, led Duke with a team-high 17 points off the bench, while Mason Plumlee recorded his first career double-double with 10 points and 14 rebounds as the top-ranked Blue Devils beat Miami 79-45 in a bench-emptying rout.
Plumlee's glass outburst followed up a disappointing first game for the athletic sophomore, who had just five points and four rebounds in the season-opening 37-point rout over Princeton.
"It's a huge step forward," Krzyzewski said. "He's capable of doing that. He's got great hands. He's a good athlete. He's a smart player. I thought he and Ryan Kelly really did a nice job starting out the ball game and obviously Mason throughout."
Kelly moved into Miles Plumlee's spot at the power forward in the starting lineup, but the exact combination of Duke's lineup didn't seem to matter as the RedHawks had no answer for anyone in white.
The Blue Devils only trailed at 1-0, its first deficit of the season, and never looked back despite a so-so shooting start and foul trouble for their star freshman. Kyrie Irving, Duke's touted first-year point guard, picked up two quick fouls and sat 13 minutes in the first half. He was limited to just 19 minutes overall after a 17-point, nine-assist debut, but scored 12 points in the second half to finish with 13 and a pair of assists.
Without Irving, Duke nonetheless steadily increased its lead and pushed its advantage to 21 points at halftime.Nolan Smith and Irving's freshman classmate Tyler Thornton ran the point for Duke. With Irving, the Blue Devils were off to the races. The RedHawks lingered early in the second half, but got no closer than 19 points. Then a 29-5 run in the middle 10 minutes of the second half put the game away for good.
Krzyzewski described his decision to move Kelly into the starting lineup as neither a "demotion" for the elder Plumlee or a "promotion" for himself, but more of an experimentation with lineup combinations.
"We'll try some different things to see where our chemistry might be with different units," Krzyzewski said. "Friday we might do something else to see how that would work. Whereas the perimeter is going to be [Nolan Smith, Irving and Kyle Singler]. And I don't want to look at yet where you would start Kyle at the four and have Andre or Seth."
Curry and Dawkins might force the coach's hand. The Blue Devils hit 40 percent from the 3-point line on another strong night from deep while Curry and Dawkins combined to hit 5-9. The duo are 11-20 from deep on the season.
"That's our job, coming off the bench," Curry said. "Our two guards get into foul trouble any game, so we've got to be ready to come in and play a lot of minutes and make a big impact in the game. Andre and I came in today and just were aggressive and did a lot of things on the defensive end that carried over to offense."
Nick Winbush led Miami with 14 points, but the Redhawks never got any continuity.
The Duke defense again kept an overmatched opponent at bay. The Blue Devils held Miami to 33-percent shooting, mostly confounding the Redhawks with their size and depth inside. Miami didn't fare much better outside, however, hitting just 6-of-25 from 3-point range.
Miami routinely gave up its offensive glass to get back in transition against Duke's fast break and because Miami coach Charlie Coales said he didn't think his team could rebound offensively against Duke's much bigger front line.
"We weren't going to get a rebound, not unless it bounced out or something." Coales said, " Those Plumlee kids, you know, I don't think they're finished at all yet, but boy they're really good athletes. ... They're good athletes so we felt like we're not going to get many offensive boards."
However, the strategy, which Krzyzewksi complimented, proved largely ineffective. Miami struggled to put together consecutive positive possessions and didn't score a transition basket until the second half.
"I think our defense has been great" Mason Plumlee said. " That's an emphasis the coaches put on us – to focus on the defensive end. Offensively we're going to score, and the best thing about defense is that if we can continue to play this way, it helps our fast break. I thought we did well defensively tonight. We let them get a couple of threes in the second half, but overall I thought we played great
Kelly, in his first start, scored seven points. The sophomore from Raleigh put on 20 pounds over the summer and seemed much more comfortable defending the post, though the RedHawks had no serious interior threat to test Duke with. However, Kelly dumped down a few nifty passes from the high post, drilled a 3-pointer from the top of the key, and opened up the low post for Mason Plumlee.
Miles Plumlee played 14 minutes off the bench and finished with three points and three rebounds.
Kyle Singler hit just 3-11 from the floor and didn't connect on five 3-point attempts for the Blue Devils, but did manage a now customary dive into the second row of the Cameron crowd pursuing a loose ball.
Krzyzewski won his 797th game with Duke. He could win his 800th at the school next week in the championship rounds of the CBE Classic, following one more tuneup Friday against Colgate. However, he'll be doing it against a tougher grade of competition. Duke opens with Marquette in Kansas City and then plays the winner of Gonzaga and Kansas State.
"Next week, we'll play a really high level opponents, away," Krzyzewski said. "Actually for the next couple weeks. Our schedule was set up to be difficult for us. But we are improving."
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