The No. 8 Duke Blue Devils (8-2) will storm the court at Madison Square Garden in a marquee matchup with the UCLA Bruins (9-1) that will be televised on ESPN and can be live streamed free by clicking this link. UCLA fans can listen along on 570 Fox Sports LA, and Duke fans can do the same on 620 The Buzz AM.
It is no secret that the key to beating Duke is figuring out some way to control freshman forward Jabari Parker, who leads the Blue Devils in points (22 PPG) and rebounds (7.6 RPG).
Parker's teammates Rodney Hood and Quinn Cook can't be ignored either though, checking in with 18.9 and 14.7 points per game respectively. Sometimes Duke's offense is so potent that their defense lags, an issue that could haunt them vs. the Bruins. "I think when we get it going offensively like that, we kind of get lazy on defense," Cook said after letting Gardner-Webb hit 54 percent of its shots. "We had it going early so we got lazy. But at some point, we've got to just get it out of our system."
"You don't stop playing for two weeks and not have some slippage," said head coach Mike Krzyzewski, giving his charges a small pass. "But overall I was pleased with our team."
Duke needs to be wary of Jordan Adams, who leads UCLA with 21.2 points per game and is a fine prospect despite being overshadowed a lot of the time by some fresher-faced newcomers. He is not one-dimensional, as he puts up 4.6 rebounds and 2.7 assists to go with the gaudy scoring totals. Defensively, he is racking up 3.5 steals a night too wreaking havoc and leading lots of transition scores.
UCLA has some defensive woes too, though, when their offense is clicking. Against Prarieview A&M, they jumped out to a 50-24 lead before letting them back into the game.
"I appreciate the guys' focus to start the game. We were lackadaisical in the second half," coach Steve Alford said. "I was pleased with the way we rebounded and defended. Our defense in the second half got lazy. We're a young team. We must learn and mature."
© Copyright 2024 Sports World News, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.