Duke Blue Devils (2-0)

1. Can Quinn Cook Run The Show?

If Duke wants to max out their offense, he’ll need to.  Seth Curry is clearly the Blue Devils’ go-to scorer on the perimeter, but he was able to get his 23 points last night primarily roaming free and playing off the ball.

“We’re looking at different ways to play…having [Cook] start out,  and then Tyler usually gets the toughest defensive assignment and [Rasheed Sulaimon] has been playing really well,” Coach K said.

And that’s just it: Thornton is in for defense.  But the junior point guard isn’t nearly the offensive dynamo that Cook is, and doesn’t create the same sort of looks for Duke’s scorers that Cook can.

“Quinn could be like a sixth starter, or he could start like he did in the second half,” Krzyzewski said of his sophomore point guard out of Virginia’s Oak Hill Academy.

I’d be surprised if Cook isn’t the fifth starter by January 5, when Duke opens up ACC play against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.

2. Will The Devils Develop Depth Inside?

Mason Plumlee was in the game with four fouls when Coach K and his assistant, Steve Wojciechowski, saw something they didn’t like.

“At first he was in and he didn’t play defense so they went right at him.  After a timeout,  Steve got on him and said, ‘Look, you can’t play like you have four fouls, you just have to play smart,’ and [Mason] did,” Kryzewski said.

Being able to play through foul trouble is a valuable asset for a big man, and I’m sure the Duke staff is encouraged to see Plumlee making strides.  But Mason plays hard, jumps high and believes he can swat anything, so it’s doubtful that foul trouble will become a thing of the past anytime soon.

When that third foul comes in the first half, or he gets hit with a fourth before the eight-minute mark of the second, who will fill in behind the middle Plumlee brother?

Coach K doled out kudos for the two offensive boards Josh Hairston pulled down in relief of Plumlee, but he only played 14 minutes, scoring five points and pulling down five rebounds in all.

Aside from that, freshman Amile Jefferson got four minutes at the four, and redshirt freshman Alec Murphy got two.

Starting power forward Ryan Kelly is very clearly a power forward first, and can’t bang with ACC (or for that matter, SEC) centers. He could, and will, slide over occasionally, but that limits Duke as much offensively as it hurts them defensively.

Mason’s little brother Marshall Plumlee, a former Mickey D’s All-American and current sophomore, has started to practice again as he recovers from a foot injury, but he’ll need some time to work his way back once he does start getting minutes.

Coach K is likely waiting for a weaker opponent before seeing what his unproven reserves are made of, but it’s in his and his team’s best interest to figure out what that is as soon as possible.

3. Can Duke Guard Small Forwards?

With under ten left in the half, momentum was starting to shift in the Wildcats’ favor as Kentucky took the ball out underneath the basket.  The Duke fans behind me saw a mismatch that made them start chirping.

“Why the hell do they—wait is that?—no…no, it is! They got Cook on Poythress!” one of the men said.

“Jeeeeee-sus Christ,” his buddy said about eight seconds later after Poythress had grabbed an offensive rebound right over his defender—who happened to be Tyler Thornton, not Quinn Cook—and then scored on the putback.

But whether it was Cook or Thornton is immaterial (but it was Thornton. Promise.).