It’s the middle of December, Duke has nothing but ACC games remaining on its 2020-21 schedule and the Blue Devils have played only four games.
Attempting to assess where the Blue Devils are as a team, with the ACC opener at Notre Dame set for Wednesday night, is difficult as the pandemic continues to keep the sports world off-kilter.
What is known so far, though, is Duke hasn’t shown the same offensive firepower it normally possesses.
The No. 21 Blue Devils (2-2) currently sit at 17th nationally in offensive efficiency — scoring 110.3 points for every 100 possessions — according to KenPom.com’s advanced statistics. Being the top 20 is great for many programs, but Duke has finished in the top 10 every season dating back to 2008-09 and is regularly above 120 points per 100 possessions.
There’s been some slippage.
“We are just an average team that is very young and has to get better,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said following Duke’s 83-68 loss to Illinois on Dec. 8. “On the offensive end, we are not confident. For whatever reason it is, we are not confident on that end of the court. I have to do things to make sure they get that confidence.”
The Blue Devils turn the ball over far too often, doing so on 21.5% of their possessions, That’s No. 227 nationally among all Division I teams.
They don’t shoot particularly well, having made 44.2% of their shots. That’s No. 170 nationally.
Those are big issues the team must fix to compete for the ACC championship.
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An even deeper look, thanks to Synergy Sports analytics, shows exactly where Duke is weakest and strongest offensively.
Most of Duke’s possessions (30.8%) include spot-up shooting situations, where a player runs to a spot to catch the ball and shoots quickly. The Blue Devils have hit 38% of their shots in those situations while only committing turnovers 6.7% of the time.
Their scoring in those situations is considered middle-of-the-pack nationally, with a good rating by Synergy.
The shooting percentage and turnover rate are both similar to last season’s Duke team.
Matthew Hurt, Jalen Johnson and reserve Jaemyn Brakefield are all strong scorers in these situations. Hurt and Johnson hit 50% of those shots while Brakefield is at 67.6%.
Johnson, though, has turned it over 16.7% of the time.
By contrast, transition offense is hurting Duke dramatically, earning a poor rating from Synergy. Transition situations, at 19.6% of all possessions, are second only to spot-up as the most prevalent so far this season.
But the Blue Devils turn the ball over 20.9% of the time in transition and they’ve scored just .863 points per possession. That scoring efficiency has Duke in the bottom 14% of teams nationally.
By comparison, Duke scored 1.11 points per possession in transition last season while turning it over just 10.8% of the time.
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The problem this season appears to be the players involved in those situations.
Senior guard Jordan Goldwire has only made 2 of 7 transition shots on 12 possessions while turning it over four times. Freshman guard DJ Steward has made 3 of 6 shots on 10 possessions but turned it over four times. Sophomore small forward Wendell Moore has hit 3 of 7 shots on 11 possessions but has at least limited his turnovers to just one.
Hurt and Johnson, Duke’s two best scorers in terms of skill set, have rarely been involved in transition. Hurt has only been involved in five such possessions, taking four shots and hitting three with one turnover.
On eight transition possessions, Johnson has made 3 of 6 shots with one turnover.
So Duke has plenty of room for growth and improvement in transition.
Getting points from the ball handler in pick-and-roll situations has also been an issue. Duke has scored just 12 points on 29 such possessions (0.41 points per possession) while turning it over 24.1% of the time. Synergy also considers that worthy of a poor rating.
Goldwire’s been the main player in those situations with seven such possessions. He’s turned it over on three of them while scoring just six points. Steward, in six possessions, has scored four points with two turnovers.
Moore is 0-for-5 shooting as the pick-and-roll ball-handler.
That’s a big part of Moore’s poor start to the season. He’s shooting 7 of 30 overall (23.3%) and 1 of 9 on 3-pointers.
“Wendell is really struggling,” Krzyzewski said. “God bless him. He’s just really struggling.”
The Blue Devils are strong when they have players cut to the basket, like when they use their 5-out motion offense with five players spread out around the 3-point line. Duke has zero turnovers on 25 such possessions.
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Johnson has hit 4 of 5 shots and scored 11 points on seven possessions. Hurt has six points in six possessions.
But those situations only account for 7.3% of Duke’s possessions. Perhaps more points can be found by going to those sets more often.
That would mean Johnson, who has found himself in foul trouble too often this season, can stay on the court more.
The Blue Devils have had an extended period to work on their offensive issues. Duke last played Dec. 8 against Illinois, meaning the Blue Devils will have eight days between games when they take the court at Notre Dame on Wednesday.
After the players get a break until returning Dec. 24, the team will resume practicing to prepare for a Dec. 29 home game against Pittsburgh.
Any improvement, or lack thereof, on offense during this stretch will go a long way toward determining how good the Blue Devils can be this season.
