Duke may have lost, but don’t be too concerned.
The nation’s No. 1 team, the Duke Blue Devils, went on the road for the second time this season and promptly got bounced by the Boston College Eagles, 89-84. The Eagles backcourt of Ky Bowman and Jerome Robinson combined to score 54 points while Jordan Chatman added 22 of his own as the Blue Devils lost their ACC opener for the second straight season.
Anytime three players on a worse team combine to nearly outscore the country’s top team on their own, it’s time to start asking some questions.
So, is it time to panic about Duke?
The answer: Absolutely not.
It’s important to remember how much luck is involved in an individual college basketball game. If just the right combination of things go wrong, the better team can lose and so it went on Saturday afternoon. Not every game is a referendum on a larger trend for a team.
For starters, senior Grayson Allen played one of his worst games of the season so far. Allen finished with 14 points, but he needed 20 shots and four free throws to get them. He finished 1-of-9 from behind the arc despite being a career 39.2 percent 3-point shooter and missed a few shots around the basket that he would normally make.
Yes, it’s worth crediting the Boston College defense for making Allen work for his points, but no, it didn’t make all the difference. The Duke senior generally seemed to get the looks he wanted, but sometimes the shots just don’t fall.
And when your shots bounce out and your opponents go in, you often lose. The Eagles connected on 57.7 percent (15-of-26) of their 3-point attempts against the Blue Devils despite coming into the game shooting just 31.2 percent from behind the arc. Unlike prior Duke rosters, the 2017-18 team is conceding the 3-point line to opponents and Boston College knocked their chances down. Robinson (5-for-5) and Chatman (5-for-9), in particular, took advantage.
Next: Projected top 10 after Duke's loss to Boston College
If this week in college basketball has taught us anything, it’s that anything is possible this season. The Blue Devils weren’t the only big name to get upset. Top 10 teams took Ls all week long. Florida, a top five team, lost twice, Kansas got punked by a subpar Washington team, Texas A&M lost to a struggling Arizona squad and Notre Dame got bounced by a Ball State game-winner.
Sure, you can make a case that college basketball in 2017-18 isn’t quite as good as it was in 2016-17, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to write off the Blue Devils as title contenders just yet.
Saturday was an off day. Duke will be back.