Gameday Preview: #3 Duke vs Illinois in NYC Saturday

The Duke Blue Devils (23-3) travel to New York City and Madison Square Garden to take on the Illinois Fighting Illini (17-10). The Illini head into New York City on a two game losing streak while the Devils attempt to establish a lineup without defensive stud Maliq Brown.

The Blue Devils won convincingly against the Virginia Cavaliers (13-13, 6-9 ACC) Monday night, 80-62. The Blue Devils were able to do what less than ten teams have done in the past decade against the Wahoos, score 80 points on their home floor. Cooper Flagg Kon Knueppel. And Isaiah Evans led the Blue Devils with 17 points a piece. Evans started off a blistering 5-5 from deep while Flagg pulled down 14 rebounds, a career high. The story of the night was not any performance from the Blue Devils, it was the injury to reserve big man Maliq Brown. Brown left the game late in the first half with an apparent shoulder injury. The training staff confirmed that Brown dislocated his shoulder and Head Coach Jon Scheyer is optimistic to get him back at some point this season. 

The Illini lost back to back games against a team ranked #11 in the AP Poll. The latter loss was to the #11 Wisconsin Badgers (21-5) on the road in blowout fashion, 96-74. The Badgers controlled almost the entire game, never trailing after the game was tied at 13 a piece with 13 minutes to go in the first half. Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn came off the bench for the Illini and led the team in scoring with 17 points and 5 assists. The only starter in double figures was Ben Humrichous with 13 points off 3-6 from the arc and 2-2 from the charity stripe. Leading scorer Kasparas Jakucionis who averages almost 16 points per game only scored 6 in the defeat. 

Key Points

Duke

• What does the second team look like defensively without Maliq Brown? There is no guarantee the defensive standout will return this season, and with that, the Blue Devils will need to find their defensive heart. Isaiah Evans took over Brown’s minutes but has struggled defensively against high caliber teams this year.
• The absence of Brown brings another issue for the Blue Devils: who can spell big man Khaman Maluach? Patrick Ngonga looks to be the answer but has played inconsistently. Look for Scheyer to experiment with Mason Gillis and Cooper Flagg playing the 5 against a stronger opponent.
• Can Duke keep the consistent scoring up? The Blue Devils have shared the ball well in recent games and distributed scoring across multiple players. The Devils need to keep this trend up so the scoring duties do not fall solely on Freshman Cooper Flagg.

Illinois

• Control the boards. The Illini average 43 rebounds a game, 10 more than their opponents. The Blue Devils are down a big man. Look for the Illini to win the rebounding battle. They should be able to limit Duke’s ability to get open 3’s off offensive rebounds and be able to get second chance points when they are on the offensive end. 
• Kasparas Jakucionis vs. Cooper Flagg in a battle of marquee freshmen. In neutral site games, Jakucionis is averaging 22 points, 4 boards and 4 assists. Another performance like that will put the pressure on the Blue Devils 
• Duke has lost 2 big time neutral site games this season. Illinois can capitalize on this apparent weakness to pull off the upset.