Duke 79 Illinois 66

Again, Duke slowed it down and allowed the deficit to shrink a bit at the expense of wasting time. As a result, this was Duke's lowest scoring game of the year so far and the slowest paced game of the season, but a very efficient game for Duke. This is a good, tough, physical Illinois team that we beat tonight and it's a good, quality win.

Tomorrow night we have a rematch with Marquette from last year. Instead of providing in depth stats for tonight's game and tomorrow's game, I'm going to provide a up-to-this point in the season comparison between Duke 07-08 and Duke 06-07 since both squads will have played Marquette and 1 other quality team in the first 5 games. Obviously Duke started 4-1 last year. Marquette looked exceptional today against Oklahoma State - but OSU also looked very emotionless and stale. Marquette will be a great test for us, but even if we lose the game, I think we'll compare very favorably to last year's team. However, I think we can win.

Fun stats from tonight:

• Duke scored over 1.22 points per possession with only a 21.7% offensive rebounding rate. That happens when you shoot 64.4% (26 for 45 overall, 6 for 14 from 3) from the field and only turn it over on 17% of your possessions.
• Rebounding was a problem for us tonight - Illinois rebounded 43.9% of their available O-boards, while we only grabbed the aforesaid 21.7%. This is not shocking - Illinois was one of the better defensive rebounding teams last season, grabbing over 70% of available boards. They were a good, but not great, offensive rebounding team. But then again, a lot of their boards tonight on the offensive glass really just slipped right through Duke players' hands.
  
• Illinois only turned it over 10 times - but Duke played exceptional perimeter defense even so. They shot just 21 for 61 from the field, 4 for 15 from 3. We contained penetration very well. I wonder if this was an intentional strategy by the staff or more of an inability to cause turnovers. Either way, Duke will need to disrupt Marquette's guard play to throw off their offense. If James and McNeal are having a tough time getting good looks, Duke will probably win.