BLACKSBURG, Va. -- With guard Luke Kennard’s emergence and the presence of Duke’s second-to-none freshman class, it seemed as if the Blue Devils would be able to get by without Grayson Allen in the lineup.
Virginia Tech’s 89-75 win over the Blue Devils on Saturday showed otherwise -- the Hokies led by as many as 20 and never trailed.
“We just didn’t come to play. We didn’t come to fight actually,” Duke forward Amile Jefferson said. “Guys may have come to play, but guys didn’t come to fight.”
Allen is no longer Duke’s leading scorer, and he’s not some masterful defensive stopper who would have prevented the Hokies from shooting 55 percent from the floor. But he has always been a guy who comes to fight.
Even going back to Allen’s freshman season as a reserve, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski credited him with bringing the fight back to Duke when it trailed Wisconsin in the 2015 national title game.
Frankly, that competitive edge could be why Allen was suspended in the first place. His third tripping incident in a calendar year all but forced Krzyzewski to sit him down. Krzyzewski announced that Allen could no longer serve as a captain with Jefferson and Matt Jones, but the coach did not define, at least publicly, the path for Allen’s return.
In Krzyzewski's postgame remarks, he repeatedly said the Blue Devils lack cohesion.
“You would like to have eight guys like [Virginia Tech] so when they’re in there, they have that cohesiveness and familiarity of playing with one another, and we don’t have that,” Krzyzewski said. “You have to figure that out quick, or else you’re going to keep getting punished in our league.”
That’s just part of what the Blue Devils are missing without Allen.
When Duke fell behind early in the game and needed a player to assert control, no one stepped up to do it.
Kennard certainly took the scoring burden. He finished with 34 points, just one shy of tying his career high, but he hasn’t evolved into a leader. His cool demeanor doesn’t fire up his teammates in the same way Allen’s intensity can.
While Duke’s freshmen class is talented and skilled, the Blue Devils were still a bunch of rookies playing in their first true road game and making their ACC debut. There was an uptick in intensity with facing the Hokies, which the Blue Devils weren’t prepared to match.
Guard Frank Jackson, who started in place of Allen, committed his third foul just seven minutes into the game.
Jayson Tatum was Duke’s only other scorer in double figures with 18, but he managed just 1-for-7 shooting in the first half. Tatum often looked unsure defensively, as demonstrated on one possession when he left 42 percent 3-point shooter Justin Bibbs with too much room, allowing him to knock down one of his four 3s in the game.
Marques Bolden has been slow to pick up Duke's system after missing the first eight games with a lower leg injury. The only two games he has played more than 10 minutes in were identical 94-55 blowouts of Maine and UNLV.
Harry Giles has made a similar trickle into the lineup, playing just his third game back after rehabilitating a knee injury. The No. 1 overall player in the 2016 ESPN 100 made the first field goal of his college career against the Hokies.
A play in the second half summed up where the Blue Devils are right now. Giles and Kennard were defending a pick-and-roll but misread each other on who would take Virginia Tech's Zach LeDay rolling to the basket. Giles was a step behind and could only foul LeDay as he made a basket.
Duke was so out of sorts defensively that in the first half, Krzyzewski went zone for a possession to try to stop the Hokies' dribble penetration.
Even with Allen on the floor, the Blue Devils were trying to find a rhythm in a season where they've had a healthy roster for only a handful of games. Now that they're playing without Allen, it has become even tougher to get on the same beat.
"We haven't played well for three straight games, and that's disconcerting," Krzyzewski said. "But that's the way it is."