Inside the boxscore: Duke 74, FSU 66

1. With roughly 20 pro scouts in attendance, Austin Rivers didn’t have his most impressive game, but he showed the player he’s going to develop into once he’s getting paid. He was unconscious from beyond the arc, making several shots with a hand in his face, but struggled converting just 2-8 2s. This won’t concern the scouts though, as Rivers showed an understanding of how FSU was playing him on the drives and kicked the ball several times to open 3-point shooters. Earlier in the season he would have forced more bad shots. For just the 5th time this season Rivers recorded at least 4 assists. In his first 20 games Rivers had this many assists one time. In the past 8 games he’s done it four times. Credit the coaching staff for how they’ve developed his game at both ends of the court.

2. Duke made 13-28 3-pt shots. For the season 38% of their shots have come from beyond the arc, but against FSU that number went to 54%. The Blue Devils have matched that number two other times this season. Against Michigan State (54%) and against North Carolina (58%). Those two games were also the only other two times Duke has made more 3s than 2s in a game. Not sure that that is a recipe for winning six games in March, but with a good bracket and timely shooting anything is possible.

3. Bernard James had five blocks. This gives him 64 on the season and 146 in his <2-year career. It was the 4th time he’s had five blocks. He’s now in 5th place all-time at FSU and needs 15 more to pass Solomon Alabi and Andre Reid. He’ll also finish with the #2 and #3 single season block totals in Seminoles history.

4. FSU committed a season low 8 turnovers (12% of their possessions). The last time an FSU team committed fewer turnovers was February 27, 2008. FSU is 325th in the nation in turnovers, and barring a drastic improvement this will be the third straight season they’ve ranked worse than 300th. Though they’re also elite at forcing them, and have forced more turnovers than they’ve committed in 7 of the past 11 games (with one tie).

5. The Noles extended 16 possessions with offensive rebounds. They rebounded 42.1% of their own misses which is 5.6% higher than their season average. This has been a problem all year for Duke who currently rank 167th nationally in allowing offensive boards. No Duke team since 2007 has finished amongst the nations top-100 in this metric.

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