The the 7th ranked Duke Blue Devils dropped their 2nd game in a row – falling to Georgia Tech, 72-68, at McCamish Pavilion.
In back to back contests the Blue Devils found themselves having to overcome a double digit deficit. This time it was an 11-point gap with 17:19 remaining in the 2nd.
The Blue Devils were able to make a comeback and even took a four-point lead with 2:22 remaining. The game was locked up at 68 with 1:20, but a costly turnover by Mark Mitchell led to a easy basket on the other end. The Yellow Jackets didn’t look back – closing the game on a 6-0 run.
After the loss head coach Jon Scheyer admitted that the coaching staff will likely need to make some changes, but the most important this is for his squad to stick together.
“It was a tough day for us. One, losing Tyrese [Proctor] right away is a thing you have to react to in real time. From the start of the game we gave them some life with the threes. I thought they hit some tough shots, but for us, we have to do a better job starting off the game and we didn’t start off well. The entire game, we’re fighting and clawing our way back. We’ve got something inside of us, because we did. We go up four.
We have a week of practice. We have to stick together. We’ve got to get together even closer. As a coaching staff, there are some things we have to look at and probably make some changes. But the biggest thing is really sticking together, being together on offense. I haven’t liked the way we’ve shared the ball the last two games. We had 11 assists,and we have a team, I believe, that should have close to 20 assists a game. It should come easier for us.”
The Blue Devils fall to 5-3 and possibly outside of the top 25. Duke returns home after the two-game road trip, to take on Charlotte at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 9. Tipoff is scheduled for 2:15 p.m.
Game Notes:
- Duke dropped its ACC opener for the first time since 2017 and is 53-19 all-time in the first ACC game of a season.
- Jeremy Roach scored a team-high 20 points, on 6-of-12 (.500) shooting. It is his fifth game scoring in double-figures this season, second straight and 54th time in his career. The Blue Devils are now 40-14 when he scores at least 10 points and 7-3 when he has a 20-point outing. The senior also reeled in eight rebounds, setting a new career high.
- Kyle Filipowski finished one rebound shy of his third consecutive double-double, scoring 12 points to go along with nine rebounds. The sophomore blocked a career-high four shots, eclipsing his previous best of three – a mark he had logged twice previously and most recently versus Southern Indiana on Nov. 24, 2023.
- Caleb Foster played a career-high 36 minutes, tallying 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field for his second double-figure scoring effort of the season.
- Mark Mitchell scored 11 points on 5-of-11 shooting. For just the second time, Duke did not win when Mitchell scored at least 10 points. The Blue Devils’ record when Mitchell scores 10+ is 18-2.
- Tyrese Proctor only played 76 seconds before exiting the game with a lower-body injury.
