ORLANDO — That this is even a question, during a real life NCAA Tournament game, is so telling in itself:
What’s the longest a tournament team has gone without scoring to start a game? Like, not even a single point?
Alas, after a deep Internet dive and outreach to outside statistics bodies, that data does not appear to be tracked. (Womp womp.) Still, the fact that No. 5 seed Duke held No. 12 seed Oral Roberts without a single point for the first 8:05 of its first-round NCAA Tournament game? It’s supremely impressive. Because, let it be said: The Golden Eagles are, objectively, good at offense. Sure, they play in the Summit League, but led by Max Abmas — the architect of the team’s Cinderella run two seasons ago, a 22.2 point-per-game scorer — ORU has posted the nation’s No. 21 offense in terms of adjusted efficiency, per KenPom. It isn’t even just Abmas; four different players on coach Paul Mills’ team are in the top-200 in offensive rating, including 7-foot-5 Arkansas transfer Connor Vanover, one of the few players nationally with size to rival Dereck Lively II.
And you know what?
None of that mattered.
Duke rolled to a 15-0 lead to open the game, forcing Oral Roberts to miss its first 12 shots. By the time ORU scored its first points — a DeShang Weaver layup, over Lively’s outstretched arm — this thing wasn’t technically done, but it may as well have been. Just ask the Oral Roberts student drummer, who stood up to cheer when his team first scored … before glancing up at the Amway Center jumbotron, shaking his head, and promptly sitting back down.
“They’re definitely getting discouraged,” Roach said of the energy on the court during that run. “I mean, we’re hitting tough shot after tough shot, and their heads are just dropping. When you see a team like that, you know you’ve got them on the ropes.”
Which, as it turned out, Duke did. The final 74-51 margin wasn’t so much confirmation of that as it was mandated. At some point, the bludgeoning did have to end. Consider this: Had Duke not scored for the final 13:48, after a Jeremy Roach jumper gave the Blue Devils 52 points, it still would have won.
Duke doing *gestures broadly* all this, of course, is nothing new. For the season, Jon Scheyer’s squad ranks as the No. 15 team nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, per BartTorvik. That has been Duke’s thing all season, through the injuries and inconsistency and bouts of offensive ineptitude. Since Feb. 1, though? That efficiency ratchets up to No. 8 nationally, per the same metric — which is one spot behind No. 1 overall seed Alabama. These sorts of suffocating starts are just one indicator of that, but obviously, a promising one.
Duke D vs. ORU:
🔒 Held ORU to 51 points (2nd-fewest points this season… 33 points below season scoring average)
🔒 Fewest points allowed by Duke in the Dance since 2015 (vs. San Diego State)
🔒 Allowed just 0.8 PPP pic.twitter.com/qVSnOzMRC3
— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) March 17, 2023
We know what the results, the stats and the analytics say.
But also, we know why — or maybe more appropriately, who. Maybe it’s not said as often, but anyone who has watched the development of this Duke team can tell you the reason this team has won 10 straight:
“Really, the second half of the season, Dereck has been on an absolute tear,” Scheyer said.
Lively was the No. 1 recruit in this class for a reason, although his unconventional skills made that difficult for some to accept earlier this season. “He’s definitely shut all the haters up,” Roach added. “I’ve seen everybody on Twitter and Instagram saying, ‘Oh, Lively’s this, Lively’s that.’ Like, where were y’all a month ago?” Clearly, they’re still coming to terms with what is possible with a player like this, someone Scheyer unabashedly calls a defensive “unicorn.”
The NBA scout in me is absolutely slobbering watching Dereck Lively II on defense. Sliding on the perimeter and getting back to pick-and-ops like he’s reading the paper. Showing up out of the blue to reject shots at the rim. Soaring over everyone for defensive boards. Holy crap.
— John Hollinger (@johnhollinger) March 16, 2023
It is probably simplistic to call Lively a 7-foot-1 Swiss Army knife, a do-it-all defender in an oversized frame, but anything less than that is a disservice to his dominance. He has the No. 3 block rate nationally, per KenPom, as was evident with his six blocked shots on Thursday; that’s the third-most by a Duke player in an NCAA Tournament game — behind the likes of Shane Battier, Mike Gminski and Shelden Williams — and most by a freshman. But he also comfortably switches onto guards and even challenged Abmas on occasion in ball-screen situations. If a guard gets by him, no worries; he almost always has the closing speed and length to make up the difference from behind, and discourage such drives in the future. And out on the perimeter?
“There’s not many guards that get 3s off against Dereck — and if they do, we welcome them shooting a deep 3 over an extended Dereck Lively,” Ryan Young said. “We’re very quick to switch with him onto guards, because I don’t think it’s a mismatch at all — I think it’s a mismatch in our favor.”
In the first half against Oral Roberts, with Lively playing 16 minutes, the Golden Eagles averaged a dismal 0.657 points per possession (PPP). Lively had five first-half blocks, and as Scheyer said after, “there’s a few more where they’re either looking or they end up passing out, just because of his presence around the basket.”
“When you see a guy like that,” teammate Dariq Whitehead said, “I’m not gonna say it’s scary… but it’s scary.”
Lively’s presence on the back end alters how his teammates can play man-to-man defense on the perimeter. “You can get up more, you can pressure more, kind of gamble for a little bit, be more aggressive,” Roach said, “because you know you’ve got a 7-foot guy behind you who’s got your back.” That’s how Duke only allowed Oral Roberts — a top-50 team nationally in 3-point percentage — to make eight of its 32 3-point tries. Put another way, if Duke’s defense is a solar system, Lively is the sun around which everything revolves.
“He’s completely changed our team,” Scheyer said.
(Photo of Dereck Lively II defending Max Abmas: Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images)
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Led by Dereck Lively II, Duke’s defense dominates Oral Roberts in NCAA Tournament - The Athletic
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