Duke basketball learned what its identity can be in January.
Now, in February, head coach Jon Scheyer wants his team to elevate that identity.
“(February is) also a month to learn, I hope,” Scheyer said on Monday, Feb. 3 on the weekly ACC coaches Zoom. “I think it’s a month to grow. We learned, I think, what our identity can be and then in February, you want to continue to elevate these things you have learned this past month, in my mind. I think that’s exactly where we’re at.”
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The No. 4 Blue Devils (20-1, 9-0) finished the month of January a perfect 8-0. It marks their fifth unbeaten month under Scheyer and Duke’s second-straight undefeated January.
Scheyer previously said his squad felt re-energized following its West Coast swing midway through the month, and the Blue Devils’ results back that up. They opened January with a slim four-point road win at Florida State and closed with a 14-point road victory at Virginia Tech – Duke’s fifth straight double-digit win going back to its game at Cal on Jan. 14. The Blue Devils won their first three games of the month by an average of 7.3 points and won the last five by an average of 22.2.
Duke lost the points-in-the-paint battle in two of its first three games of January, going on to post 40 or more points in the paint in each of its last five games of the month, with a high of 48 against Wake Forest. A similar trend can be found on the boards, where the Blue Devils were outworked by SMU on Jan. 10, 30-23, and went on to finish the month with a rebounding advantage of plus-69 across their last five games. That includes outworking Louisville 47-26 on the glass in the team’s Jan. 26 contest after only edging the Cardinals by two on the boards in the Jan. 6 contest.
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“I think we’re finding our identity, right?” Scheyer said. “Doing a better job of our offense helping our defense with shot selection and valuing the ball. That’s been much better. That helps you win the possession game, right? And then just learning how to play to our strengths. I think it’s taken us some time to figure out what are the strengths of this team and for us, it’s playing inside out. There’s many different ways we can get there. It’s really trying to win the rebounding battle every game with our size and the physicality we have on this team. And then doing our job of, like I said, the possession battle, protecting the ball and valuing possessions that way.”
Now heading into the last half of conference play, and ahead of a Feb. 21 nonconference game against Michigan, Scheyer and the Blue Devils look to further solidify their identity as March looms.
Defensively, Scheyer said he wants his team to “do both,” continue to protect the paint and the rim, but also protect the 3-point line.
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“In March, you have to be able to do both,” Scheyer said. “What I mean by that is we’ve done a good job of protecting our paint, protecting the rim. We’ve been disciplined, playing without fouling. But you also have to protect the 3-point line as well. The more offenses we continue to play against, the value of every possession goes up. The Virginia Tech game was our lowest-possession game all year. For our guys, that’s a great experience just to understand the value of every possession.”
Offensively, he wants to see his team get out in transition and play faster.
“That isn’t necessarily the way our team is built or how we have had great success, so we’ve had to be really sharp with our attention to detail, executing offense, understanding how people are gonna play us and call more plays than maybe we typically have” Scheyer said. “We’ve been really efficient and effective with that.”
Anna Snyder covers Duke for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at asnyder@usatodayco.com or follow her @annaesnydr on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: What Jon Scheyer wants from Duke basketball in February
