Duke has been the best team in the country this season. It’s not much of a hot-take to make that claim. However, on the first day of the tournament, every flaw that we’ve seen from the Blue Devils bubbled to the surface and almost caused them to have a wildly embarrassing first-round exit.
Siena had Duke on the ropes. They held a 13-point lead in the second half, the largest deficit that Duke had faced all season long. It was a disaster of a performance for the Blue Devils, who were playing what was essentially a home game in Greenville, South Carolina. Jon Scheyer simply didn’t have Duke prepared for the moment.
When interviewed at halftime, Maliq Brown said the Blue Devils were dealing with some nerves and believed Siena would be a cakewalk.
I’d love to argue that something like this would never happen under Coach K, but he did have a team that went down to 15-seed Lehigh. If Duke has a performance like this in any other round, their time in the dance will be short-lived, but maybe this was the wakeup call they needed.
You have to respect every team in your way in March Madness, and TCU is going to be a significant jump in talent from a Sienna team that essentially played their whole starting lineup for the entirety of the game.
The Horned Frogs physically dominated Ohio State for most of the matchup, with elite ball pressure from their guards on defense and aggressive post play, where they dominated the glass and garnered 12 offensive rebounds against the Buckeyes. Siena seemed to run out of gas in the final 10 minutes of this game, but TCU found its second wind in the final 10 minutes of theirs. They won’t just fade away if they pull away early.
Freshman Cayden Boozer was impressive in his first tournament game, doing a great job of replacing Caleb Foster as the offensive playcaller; however, he struggled to get the rest of the team involved. Cam Boozer, who will likely be the national player of the year, had a nice stat line, but was honestly bullied by Francis Folefac and Riley Mulvey. Duke will have to do a better job at getting him better looks, and Cam will have to do a better job of taking care of the ball.
Hopefully, Duke learns from their first-round mistakes and generates offensive rim pressure from start to finish against TCU. When Boozer and company attacked on offense, Sienna stood no chance of stopping them.
With that being said, Duke -11.5 is the freest bet of all time. This team was the best in the nation all season for a reason. I don’t think they’ll put up two stinkers in a row on the big stage.
