MBB: Duke 75, Texas 60 (November 4, 2025) Postgame Thread

-jk said:
We jumped from 8 to 6 in kenpom after the win. (And, yeah, it's way too early for meaningful computer polls.)

-jk
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Sure, but it is a really nice resume win for Duke to have under its belt right off the bat.

Sean Miller is a hell of a coach, so Texas should be at least a solid team all season and will surely win some big games with all their opportunities in the Big 12. And they only have to be Top 50 for last night to be a Q1 victory for Duke.

Gonna be interesting to see how many wins Texas may be able to rattle off the rest of the month against a friendly schedule. They've got four straight home games they should win followed by the Maui Invitational, whose field is fairly weak by that tournament's high standards.
 
BrummieDevil said:
Sure, but it is a really nice resume win for Duke to have under its belt right off the bat.

Sean Miller is a hell of a coach, so Texas should be at least a solid team all season and will surely win some big games with all their opportunities in the Big 12. And they only have to be Top 50 for last night to be a Q1 victory for Duke.

Gonna be interesting to see how many wins Texas may be able to rattle off the rest of the month against a friendly schedule. They've got four straight home games they should win followed by the Maui Invitational, whose field is fairly weak by that tournament's high standards.
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Texas is SEC now. Even better for the resume 😎.
 
I liked the screens they set for Evans to get him corner 3’s - hard to defend those. Agree that Foster played lockdown D - his jumpers were on point. He had a nice penetration and spin move as well for a score - I don’t mind seeing that versus penetrating and then dribbling back out.

Khamenia seemed a bit out of control at times but also had some great passes.

As others have said, Ngongba and Brown played good but gave away some silly fouls. I feel like not having a true 3rd center and more small ball with Cam at the 5 may cost us a game at some point this season.

Excited to see this team grow and improve through the season.
 
I definitely liked the idea of scheduling these scrums with Tenn and Tx right off the bat. The talent on the Duke teams tends to naturally produce finesse basketball and not so much physical basketball. I only saw the 18 min highlight game and what I saw wasn’t pretty basketball, but happy it was effective basketball. The highlights showed more missed FTs than made…I’ll have to check the stat sheet when it’s posted.
 
scottdude8 said:
Despite the slow start, I think Jon Scheyer got EXACTLY what he wanted out of this contest. These guys now know how to play when the opposing gameplan is “make it a rugby match,” which history tells us will happen a few times. We took that punch, adjusted at half, and when the whistles turned we took advantage. Cam in particular isn’t going to play many halves like that first one.

All 9 guys who played had a basket, a rebound, and an assist. That’s incredible, and arguably without precedent in modern Duke history against a strong opponent. That bodes extremely well.

P.S. Texas’s center is one of the dirtier players I’ve seen in a while and is going to get hit with a bunch of flagrants this year.
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I was surprised when they didn't call him for head-butting Maliq.
 
I was unable to watch the game. Texas was killing us on the boards in the 1H. When I looked at the stats, this morning, we must have done a much better job in the 2H to close the gap. Was this a matter of effort or did we make adjustments at halftime? Thanks.
 
Once again, a poor first half followed by a dominant second half. I sense a theme. Here are the metrics.

OFFENSE:
Possessions: 66.6 (an extremely slow pace)
oRtg: 112.6 (118.1 adjusted, which would be #16 nationally for what little the adjustments are worth this early)
eFG%: 51.0% (okay)
3pt%: 39.1% (good)
2pt%: 44.8% (blah)
%threes: 44.2% (a bit high)
FT rate: 57.7% (excellent)
OR%: 32.4% (okay)
TO%: 15.0% (solid)
a/to: 1.3 (okay-ish)
fast break pts: 11 (okay... could have had at least 2 more for sure though)

DEFENSE:
dRtg: 90.1 (85.9 adjusted; would be #1 in the country - excellent regardless of adjustment)
eFG%: 36.4% (excellent)
3pt%: 29.4% (good)
2pt%: 33.3% (excellent)
%threes: 28.8% (quite low)
FT rate: 39.0% (not great)
DR%: 59.1% (yikes)
TO%: 24.0% (good)
a/to: 0.38 (fantastic)
stl%: 12.0% (good)
blk%: 4.8% (2pt shots) (poor)
fast break pts: 6 (solid)

We won 3 of the 4 factors, losing only the rebound battle. The defense was excellent in both halves. The offense was putrid in the first half and excellent in the second half. Definitely still some work to do, but I'll take it. Texas is probably a bubble team, so winning going away despite a rough first half is a positive for sure. Torvik gave us a game score of 98 (out of 100), so a strong start to the season.

Glad to see the full roster available last night. Brown appeared a bit off-pace, which is probably not surprising. I'm sure he'll get back to his disruptive self soon. Cam had a rough first half, but cooked in the second half. Evans did his thing and then some. Hopefully the supporting cast will pick it up a bit offensively moving forward.
 
It's nice to have meaningful basketball games back. Props to Jon for scheduling this. I like the idea of starting the season off against a physical, good-but-not-great team in a "neutral" venue with a pro-Duke crowd. Some disconnected thoughts about the game:
1. I had some concerns about the defense before last night, but a Foster/Evans/Sarr backcourt with Boozer and either Ngongba or Brown feels like a strong defensive unit. Duke will miss not having a Maluach/Lively/Williams to anchor the defense, but overall I think it looks like a tough team to score against. If they can just do a better job gathering defensive rebounds they'll be more than fine on the defensive end.
2. Sarr is oozing with potential. My expectations were lowered after his quiet preseason, but last night he showed glimpses of what is possible and it was clear why his name is so high on draft boards. After not starting in the exhibitions, I think he's going to lock down the starting spot at the 3.
3. Can we put to bed the notion that Evans is nothing more than a spot up shooter? He was active all night long with his cutting, drew fouls, carried the offense in the first half, and played solid defense. Opposing coaches are going to have their work cut out for them trying to figure out how to shut down both Evans and Cameron.
4. On the officiating, I do not understand why the refs felt the need to protect Vokietaitis but didn't give the same respect to Ngongba and Brown. Vokietaitis should have had 4 offensive fouls before halftime but they only called 2, and it felt like the only reason the others weren't called was because the officials knew his foul count. I don't recall have any issues with the fouls called on the Duke bigs, but the officials didn't seem to be concerned with fouling them out like they were with the Texas bigs. Also, if you are going to give coaches the ability to challenge calls made on the floor, you need a replay official not involved in the original play to be adjudicating the call. Even better would be what the ACC is doing in football with televised discussions from a remote replay center. The ball obviously touched Texas last. Even Bilas was surprised that it wasn't overturned.
5. Give me second half Foster all season and I'll feel really good about our chances come March/April. He seems like such a hard worker and likable guy, I'd love for him to have a strong year.
Overall, a solid win and nice way to start the season.
 
Great opening win! Cam struggled 1st half, righted the ship in the 2nd. One of the better all around games for Caleb I’ve seen, turning into a lock down defender! Slim is gonna be a problem for opposing teams all year! Need to keep Pat and Maliq out of foul trouble. Lot’s to work on but lot ‘s to really like!
 
I felt that if the refs were calling the game the way it's supposed to be called, 3 guys would have fouled out in the first half. Pat got his shots in no question. But the Texas big guy should have fouled out shortly after the opening tip.

Duke rebounded a lot better in the second half. I'm sure Coach Scheyer had a lot to say about that at half time.

Weird calling this the first game of the season. I could have sworn I saw Duke play 2 other games. Is everyone supposed to forget those games?
 
CDu said:
Once again, a poor first half followed by a dominant second half. I sense a theme. Here are the metrics.

OFFENSE:
Possessions: 66.6 (an extremely slow pace)
oRtg: 112.6 (118.1 adjusted, which would be #16 nationally for what little the adjustments are worth this early)
eFG%: 51.0% (okay)
3pt%: 39.1% (good)
2pt%: 44.8% (blah)
%threes: 44.2% (a bit high)
FT rate: 57.7% (excellent)
OR%: 32.4% (okay)
TO%: 15.0% (solid)
a/to: 1.3 (okay-ish)
fast break pts: 11 (okay... could have had at least 2 more for sure though)

DEFENSE:
dRtg: 90.1 (85.9 adjusted; would be #1 in the country - excellent regardless of adjustment)
eFG%: 36.4% (excellent)
3pt%: 29.4% (good)
2pt%: 33.3% (excellent)
%threes: 28.8% (quite low)
FT rate: 39.0% (not great)
DR%: 59.1% (yikes)
TO%: 24.0% (good)
a/to: 0.38 (fantastic)
stl%: 12.0% (good)
blk%: 4.8% (2pt shots) (poor)
fast break pts: 6 (solid)

We won 3 of the 4 factors, losing only the rebound battle. The defense was excellent in both halves. The offense was putrid in the first half and excellent in the second half. Definitely still some work to do, but I'll take it. Texas is probably a bubble team, so winning going away despite a rough first half is a positive for sure. Torvik gave us a game score of 98 (out of 100), so a strong start to the season.

Glad to see the full roster available last night. Brown appeared a bit off-pace, which is probably not surprising. I'm sure he'll get back to his disruptive self soon. Cam had a rough first half, but cooked in the second half. Evans did his thing and then some. Hopefully the supporting cast will pick it up a bit offensively moving forward.
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I have been a skeptic about our defense, and while it was only one game, last night showed me we can string together some impressive defensive possessions. We have guys that are, at minimum, solid enough individually to make up a very good team defense.

As expected, the offense is a work in progress, but I have no doubt that it will improve.
 
BrummieDevil said:
To be fair, Dame bricked a two-handed, breakaway dunk and then had a nice drive end with the ball rolling around the entire rim before falling off during the same stretch, so it was a wash.

Speaking of Dame, I'm so excited about his development this year. He is fast as hell and his upside with just a bit of fine-tuning is so high. I really like his game and the way he plays.
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Dame also had a free throw violation on a missed one-and-one. That cost us 2 points.
 
DallasDevil said:
4. On the officiating, I do not understand why the refs felt the need to protect Vokietaitis but didn't give the same respect to Ngongba and Brown. Vokietaitis should have had 4 offensive fouls before halftime but they only called 2, and it felt like the only reason the others weren't called was because the officials knew his foul count. I don't recall have any issues with the fouls called on the Duke bigs, but the officials didn't seem to be concerned with fouling them out like they were with the Texas bigs.
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I was in my car for a significant part of the game and was listening to the ESPN Radio broadcast on Sirius XM, one of many non-televised options I suggested in the pregame thread. Bob Valvano was the analyst, and he said something about how Matas Vokietaitis should have had 8 fouls called on him, and it was early in the second half.

DrChainsaw said:
I was surprised when they didn't call him for head-butting Maliq.
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Hunter Dickinson was watching this game and thinking, "I could have head-butted Maliq Brown without penalty?"


If you can't wait until Friday's Not Top 10 Plays on SportsCenter, here's a video of Dame Sarr's missed dunk with Dick Vitale's "Awww" commentary.

 
It was a good win but I think this team is going to need a little more firepower to come frm someone other than Evans or Boozer to go anywhere. Foster played strongly in the second half. he really needs to assert himself going forward.
 
A good win against a physical Texas team. I see why Dame is seen as a one and done player. He's a really good defender and he's quick as lightning. He even made a big 3 off a Caleb assist. It looks like Dame has beaten Nik out for the 5th spot in the starting rotation. However, it's just the 1st game of the year. A few negatives. 1) Fouling too much. Pat had 5 fouls in 24 minutes, Maliq had 5 in 14 minutes, Caleb 3 in 26 minutes and Isaiah had 3 in 33 minutes. We also lost the rebounding game. But overall, I was impressed with our guys. Caleb had a great 2nd half. His defense was terrific, and he hit a nice 3-point shot. I'm wondering if the team's slow starts are tied to Caleb's slow starts. Someone mentioned too much thinking. When he puts both halves together, he's could be all-ACC good.

GoDuke!
 
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