Duke 95, Lenoir-Rhyne 42

Duke battled Lenoir-Rhyne in the wake of Election Day, and the team (and the fans) showed some of the effects of possibly staying up late to track whether NC would turn Duke blue (it did!). For the players, it manifested itself most in a few too many turnovers and poor jump shooting - only 4-17 from 3, and not any better on two-point jumpers. However, the team dominated the inside game, and hit enough layups and dunks to more than overcome the poor outside shooting. Duke ended up hitting almost 75% from 2, helped themselves on the offensive glass, forced several turnovers and got several points in transition, and completely shut down the opponent's offense. Lenoir-Rhyne shot just 27.9% for the game and missed all but 6 of their 34 second half attempts.

Singler, Smith, and Zoubek all had very nice games. Brian apparently looked very confident against the Bears and moved ably in the post, and Singler simply played a better game than anyone else. As shown in the HD Box (below), he combined an extremely high offensive rating with pretty high usage, which is superb. One comment on the box this week - the box score was a little wonky in how it set out the substitutions, so I'm pretty sure the possessions played are wrong for several people - most notably Paulus and Smith. So essentially, what's below is not accurate in all respects, but is still a fair estimation of each player's performance and contribution.



Two final notes - Lenoir-Rhyne featured an ACC alum (of sorts) on its roster, former Clemson G/F Julius Powell. He played 11 minutes, took 10 shots, scored 5 points, and turned it over twice. Clemson will not miss him, but we here wish him well in all his future endeavors. Second, there are going to be a few empty posts that come through in the next couple of days as I set up some permanent sidebar links. I think, for the most part, you can pay them no attention.