College Basketball Week 13: 5 biggest takeaways
By Chris Stone
Here’s your weekly dive into what we took away from the last seven days of college hoops.
Each week of this college basketball season seems determined to top the ones that came before it. This week’s coup de grâce on Saturday delivered perhaps at least the wildest day of hoops this season as six teams ranked in the top 10 fell. Those matchups and more taught us a few more things about the country’s best squads. Here’s a look at what we learned from the week that was.
1. Maybe we should be less concerned about Duke
In Mike Krzyzewski’s return to the Duke Blue Devils’ bench, he changed the team’s starting lineup by removing senior Matt Jones and inserting freshman Frank Jackson alongside Grayson Allen, Luke Kennard, Jayson Tatum and Amile Jefferson. The move initially seemed like an attempt to shake up the Blue Devils offense that had drawn criticism in recent weeks, but it turned out that Jones was injured at practice earlier in the week and it was unclear if he would play.
Although Jones still played 14 minutes, the move to have Jackson on the court with Duke’s core four worked out as the team held off Pittsburgh, 72-64. In a limited sample, the Blue Devils have been very good with the Jackson-Allen-Kennard-Tatum-Jefferson lineup, although they are still a decent bit better with Jones on the floor in place of Jackson as the below chart shows:
The two other things the chart shows? The first is that Duke seems to be much better with Jefferson as its lone big man on the court. The Blue Devils simply don’t have enough shooting when Tatum, Giles and Jefferson are all on the floor together and Giles single-digit minute totals in the last two games suggest we may not see that much going forward.
The second thing is more important: Duke has been excellent with its most likely March lineups on the floor. Now, both of these five-man combinations have still played small samples together due to various injuries and suspensions. Even the Jones-Allen-Kennard-Tatum-Jefferson lineup represents just about 10 percent of the Blue Devils’ total possessions this season. As rotations tighten, Krzyzewski seems like to turn to his core four along with either Jackson or Jones. So far, it looks like that’ll work out just fine.