What was billed as a matchup between potential No. 1 picks Marvin Bagley III and Mo Bamba turned into a showcase for the talents of the former, as MB3 went for 34 points and 15 boards to lead No. 1 Duke to an 85-78 overtime win over Texas in the semifinals of the PK80 tournament in Portland.
The Blue Devils had dug themselves a 43-31 hole and trailed by as many as 16 points in the second half, but that changed once Duke figured out that Texas had no way to stop their big freshman. His 34 points tied him with J.J. Redick for the Duke freshman record.
Gary Trent Jr. added 17 points for the Blue Devils, who lost senior Grayson Allen to fouls with two minutes left in the game. Coach K played the final two minutes and overtime with five freshmen on the floor.
Texas was led by Dylan Osetkowski, who finished with 19 points. The 6-foot-9 Tulane transfer played well, but a couple of questionable decisions and a missed dunk cost Texas some points; their 16-point lead should have been closer to 25. Bamba finished with nine points and 10 boards, but he fouled out in regulation and struggled to make as much of an impact as the other three big men that were on the floor.
Duke will play the winner of tonight’s No. 7 Florida vs. No. 17 Gonzaga game in the final of the PK80’s Motion bracket.
Here are five things we can takeaway from the game on Friday night:
1. Grayson Allen fouling out was the best thing that could have happened to Duke: Duke is an exceptionally young team. We’ve been this before, but it bears repeating because they youth showed up on Friday afternoon. There are six freshmen in the rotation. There are two sophomores in the rotation, neither of whom played a big role as freshmen. And there is Allen.
That’s it.
That’s Duke’s entire rotation.
On Friday, Allen played all of 25 minutes due to foul trouble. He fouled out with two minutes left in regulation. He was on the bench in overtime. And what that meant was that Duke’s youngsters got thrown into the fire in a nationally-televised tournament game. They were forced to be the ones to make winning plays, and for 20 of the 45 minutes that were played on Friday, they were not able to rely on Allen to be the one to do it for them.
Trevon Duval looked up to the task once again. Bagley, despite taking a stupid 23-footer with five seconds left in regulation, was totally dominant down the stretch. Gary Trent Jr. scored a critical and-one with a minute left that gave Duke their first lead since the first possession of the game. Wendell Carter made some important plays. Alex O’Connell was probably the biggest beneficiary. He played 29 minutes and made one of the most important plays of the game, chasing down a loose ball that eventually wound up in Allen’s hands for a three that sparked Duke’s comeback.
Those guys needed that, and it will help Duke in the long run.
2. Duke’s defense is a major problem once again: It was terrible on Friday night. No wonder Coach K is becoming reliant on a 2-3 zone. Defense rotations were slow. Guards were getting beaten one-on-one. Big men were lost defending the pick-and-roll. Their transition effort was, frankly, terrible. The thinking before the start of the season was that the presence of Bagley at the four and Duval at the point would make this group more efficiency defensively, but through two weeks that does not appear to be the case.
3. Texas gave this game away: This one is going to sting for Shaka Smart and the Longhorns, because they should have had this game won. Texas was up by 16 points in the middle of the second half, and frankly, they weren’t even playing that well. As good as Dylan Osetkowski was, he settled for far too many jumpers, missed a dunk and turned the ball over trying to throw a lob to Mo Bamba when he should have just laid the ball in. Bamba fired up two ill-advised threes of his own, while Matt Coleman shot 1-for-12 from the floor and Andrew Jones made some poor decisions.
Put another way, Texas had Duke on the ropes and couldn’t finish them off. Instead, they let Duke hang around close enough to put together a second-half run that salvaged what was an otherwise underwhelming performance. If the Longhorns find themselves on the bubble come March, they are going to regret failing to land a win over the No. 1 team in America.
4. Mo Bamba has insane tools, but his motor is a question: The potential that Bamba has as a defender is unreal. He’s 7-foot-1 with a 7-foot-9 wingspan and has the footspeed to be able to, in theory, hedge ball-screens and even switch when he needs to. He’s a unicorn prospect on the defensive end of the floor, and his offensive repertoire is, at the very least, intriguing. He’s got a soft touch and has shown enough as a three-point shooter that he wasn’t taken out on either of his misses on Friday.
But there are some issues with his motor. It’s not that he’s soft, and it’s not that he isn’t competitive, but there is just something about the way that he plays. He’s nonchalant. The word that Mike Schmitz of ESPN uses is “casual”. He has a habit of coasting, and it will be interesting to see if spending the rest of the year being coached by Shaka Smart can break him of that habit.
5. Coaching freshmen is hard: This should be the biggest takeaway from Friday night. Duke was a mess on the defensive end of the floor. Texas wasn’t much better. Coleman was a trainwreck offensively. Bamba fouled out in 20 minutes. There’s a reason that the saying goes, ‘the best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores.’ Coach K has learned that the hard way in recent years. Shaka Smart is in the middle of the crash course.
