Jon Scheyer points to why Duke struggled to stop North Carolina

Duke gave up a season-high of 93 points in their loss this weekend during their first matchup of the season with North Carolina. However, according to Jon Scheyer, the Blue Devil defense didn’t seem to be all that bad.

Scheyer assessed his team’s defensive outing following their nine-point loss in Chapel Hill. The main issue was that even though they held the Tar Heels’ leading scorer, R.J. Davis, below his season average, they still gave up 20-point outings to two members of the frontcourt for UNC.

“We did fine. But it doesn’t matter how you do against Davis if (Armando) Bacot and (Harrison) Ingram have 46,” said Scheyer. “It doesn’t matter. It’s points at the end of the day.”

“He’s still going to get his, which he did late. I thought, in the first half, we did a really good job,” Scheyer continued. “RJ is going to get his points. He did tonight.”

Duke did a decent job on Davis, a Top-15 scorer in the nation, by keeping him to just 17 points on 35.7% from the field. He scored just four in the first half with eight of his total not coming until the final three minutes.

Still, from there, three other players finished in double figures for UNC including Bacot with a game-high of 25 on 76.9% shooting along with Ingram (21 on 66.7%) and Seth Trimble (10 on 55.6%). Bacot tied a season high while it was Ingram’s most as a Tar Heel so far.

That wasn’t their only issue on the night inside the Smith Center, though. Scheyer also felt like they didn’t do enough in a few different aspects of the game. Then, after digging themselves in a hole, the Blue Devils took a few too many risks and it ended up costing them more.

“We just had to rebound, get back in transition, and get the 50-50 balls. We didn’t do that,” said Scheyer.

“I thought, when we got down, we gambled a little bit and gave them some open looks,” Scheyer added.

Duke allowed more than 25 points over the average to North Carolina than they’d given up in their first 20 games this season. Even so, the effort didn’t at all discourage Scheyer considering how he looked at it overall at the end of the night.

“I thought the defense throughout was really good,” said Scheyer.

“Overall? The defense was fine.”

Filipowski chips five of Bacot’s teeth in Duke vs. UNC 

On Saturday, Armando Bacot walked away with a win over Duke but lost pieces of his teeth in the process.

In an interview with Andy Katz, Bacot revealed how he chipped several of his teeth in the 93-84 victory over the Blue Devils.

“Man, I chipped five teeth so I’m going through it right now,” Bacot said. “As soon as we get off this, I gotta go to the doctor. (Kyle) Filipowski just went through my face. It was a good move, honestly. I can’t be mad because I was in his cylinder. I told him. Honestly, I might have actually fouled him. But, yeah, it felt bad.”

While Bacot didn’t escape unscathed, he won the war against Filipowski with the rivalry victory.