The Champions Classic, which will be played Tuesday at the Georgia Dome, is the marquee appetizer to start the college basketball season.
Duke vs. Kentucky. Kansas vs. Michigan State.
If the Blue Devils hope to be a part of the quartet that makes it back for the Final Four, the main course that will be played at the Dome on April 6 and 8, they know they must improve their perimeter defense.
Lehigh stunned the Blue Devils 75-70 in the round of 64 in last season’s NCAA tournament, largely because Duke couldn’t stop the Mountain Hawks’ guards.
Shooting guard C.J. McCollum and point guard Mackey McKnight combined to score 41 points to help Lehigh become the sixth 15th seed to knock off a No. 2 in NCAA tournament history.
“Overall, in our backcourt, defensively we weren’t your typical Duke team,” assistant coach Steve Wojciechowski said. “That’s been a point of emphasis of ours in the preseason. Our guys recognize that we weren’t as good on the defensive end of the floor. That’s really going to be a key to the success of this team.”
With Austin Rivers’ departure after one season to the NBA, coach Mike Krzyzewski decided to move Seth Curry from the point, where he played last season, to shooting guard. Tyler Thornton or Quinn Cook, whom Wojciechowski described as the team’s most natural point guard, will handle the ball. Curry said that move should help him improve on defense because he won’t expend energy defending the other teams’ point guard all game.
But the biggest improvement on defense may come from a freshman: Rasheed Sulaimon. Wojciechowski said that Sulaimon already is the team’s best on-the-ball defender, a rarity for a first-year player. He will play with Curry and Cook in a three-guard lineup.
Sulaimon, from Houston, is 6-foot-4 with arms long enough to enable him to guard most perimeter players.
“He gets in a great defensive stance and takes pride in stopping people,” Wojciechowski said. “Some of that stuff you can’t teach. To find a guy who has that coming in, and then to teach him how to play defense within a system, those are always your best defenders.”
Sulaimon said he began to take pride in his defense when he was in the fourth grade playing basketball on the AAU circuit. He said he was the kind of player who wanted to score, and didn’t want you to score.
But Sulaimon’s defense is based upon more than “want to,” a trait many coaches say is necessary to be a good defender. Sulaimon said he also works on the necessaries and understands how the two aspects are intertwined.
“You can have the fundamentals and be a bad defender if you have don’t have heart, if you don’t have toughness,” he said. “That’s one thing I’m really trying to adjust to. This game’s a lot tougher with stronger picks. You have to have that will and determination to fight through it.”
During the recruiting process, Sulaimon said Krzyzewski told him his playing time may depend upon his defense.
He got off to a good start in the Devils’ exhibition opener against Western Washington. A Vikings guard tried to beat Sulaimon with a cross-over move. Sulaimon stole the ball and raced to the other end for a layup. He filled the boxscore with 20 points, three assists, two rebounds and two steals.
Sulaimon, and the rest of Duke’s guard, played well in the season-opening victory over Georgia State on Friday night. Sulaimon, Curry, Cook and Thornton limited the Panthers’ guards to a 12-of-30 performance, with just five 3-pointers, two assists and eight turnovers.
“Rasheed has a lot of energy,” Curry said. “He brings a different dimension. It’s refreshing to have a guy out there playing hard not matter what.”
Curry indicated that energy was missing last season, saying he doesn’t know why the perimeter defense wasn’t as good. The Devils had a few good games on defense — opponents shot 43.5 percent, including 29.4 percent from the 3-point line, but he described the efforts as inconsistent.
The last seven games were especially difficult on Duke’s guards. In each of those games, an opposing guard led his team (or tied for the lead) in scoring, starting with Michael Snaer’s 18 points in Florida State’s 74-66 victory on Feb. 23, and ending with the loss to Lehigh. The Devils went 4-3 during that stretch.
If the revamped backcourt can stop dribble penetration, the Devils have the height inside with Ryan Kelly (6-11) and Marshall (6-11) and Mason Plumlee (6-10), to win the rebounding battle against most opponents.
Curry recognizes that to get back to Atlanta, the defense has to be consistent not just in some games, but every game.
“This year that’s been our focus from Day 1, being the best defensive team we can be, instead of relying on our offense,” he said.
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