Duke 62, Wake 40

To start, here's the first efficiency table of the season:

Player		O Poss.	Points	OPPP	D Poss.	Points	DPPP
McRoberts	ON	61	59	0.967	61	38	0.623
	OFF	4	3	0.750	3	2	0.667
Scheyer	ON	55	58	1.055	52	33	0.635
	OFF	10	4	0.400	12	7	0.583
Nelson	ON	45	44	0.978	45	19	0.422
	OFF	20	18	0.900	19	21	1.105
Paulus	ON	62	59	0.952	61	38	0.623
	OFF	3	3	1.000	3	2	0.667
Henderson	ON	36	30	0.833	37	32	0.865
	OFF	29	32	1.103	27	8	0.296
McClure	ON	37	35	0.946	39	27	0.692
	OFF	28	27	0.964	25	13	0.520
Thomas	ON	25	22	0.880	22	11	0.500
	OFF	40	40	1.000	42	29	0.690
Zoubek	ON	4	3	0.750	3	2	0.667
	OFF	61	59	0.967	61	38	0.623
Duke Overall		65	62	0.954	64	40	0.625

More on these numbers in a bit. First, Duke played a fantastic defensive game. The defensive rating of 62.5 is the best posted by any team in ACC conference play so far this year, and they were a last-second Ish Smith putback away from holding Wake in the 30s. Duke's defensive pressure clearly unsettled Wake, forcing them into lots of turnovers (21 in 64 possessions, 32.8%) and lots of missed shots (24 out of 37 missed from 2, 8 out of 11 missed from 3). Ishmael Smith continued his rough play in the ACC, recording 0 assists and 8 turnovers in 26 minutes of play - his turnover percentage in conference play is 11.7%, which is just abysmal. The offenses for both teams struggled - collectively, they missed 22 more shots than they made (oddly enough, the totals were 62 misses to 40 makes).

For Duke, Paulus led the way on offense, riding a hot first half to a team leading 17 points on the game. He took what has to be a career high 14 shots, and also contributed 4 assists against just 1 turnover (though there were a couple other close calls just narrowly avoided). Paulus seems to play much more confident with the ball when his scoring is up. In games this year where he's scored double figures, he has 23 assists against 15 turnovers with just a 3.7 TO%. In his single figure scoring games, his ratio is perfectly 1-t0-1, at 39 assists and turnovers with an 8.9 TO%. Getting him some open scoring looks early in games could be key to keeping him settled and less turnover prone.

McRoberts had another exceptional game, filling up all aspects of the box score with his 11 points, 8 boards, 6 assists, 3 blocks, one ridiculous open court behind-the-back-through-the-legs dribble, several brilliant passes, and a couple big emphatic dunks. McClure was McRoberts light - 7 points without missing a shot, 6 boards, 2 assists, 3 steals, and no turnovers. After struggling against Virginia Tech and not playing much against Georgia Tech, he's put together two nice games in a row.

For Wake, David Weaver had a nice game inside, with 4 boards and 3 blocks in just 12 minutes. Unsurprisingly, Visser led the way in scoring and rebounding with 12 points (he was the only Deac in double figures) and 7 boards.

As for the table above, a couple things jump out at me. First is the dramatic difference in defense with Henderson off the court (a bit of a reversal of the trend this year). He sat for 27 possessions, during which Duke allowed just 8 points. The offense was also better with Gerald on the bench, posting a 1.103 PPP. In short, Duke beat Wake 32 to 8 while Henderson was sitting, which means Wake actually had a 2 point edge while # 15 was on the court. Watching the game, this difference did not look that drastic, and I actually thought Henderson played a nice game, with a couple of very athletic scores, but these numbers suggest otherwise. The reverse of these numbers came with Nelson. Duke outscored Wake 44-19 while DeMarcus was in the game, and trailed 21-18 while he was out. This reversal makes a lot of sense, considering that Nelson and Henderson were subbed for one another 8 times during the game. Finally, note also that the offense struggled most in the absence of Scheyer (albeit with an extremely small sample size).