Everything said Duke basketball’s winning streak was toast. Except Mark Mitchell, that is
Saturday night produced something unusual for Duke basketball.
The No. 14 Blue Devils failed to take care of the basketball like they normally do. Their star player, Kyle Filipowski, looked lost in a rare unproductive game. They shot poorly.
That’s when good teams, teams with a chance to turn in a special season, have a player who finds a way to help the team win anyway.
At Notre Dame, that somebody was Mark Mitchell.
NBA scouts who flocked to Purcell Pavilion to watch Filipowski, a projected first-round NBA draft pick and preseason All-American, were underwhelmed as he finished with as many fouls (two) as made field-goal attempts as he stumbled to a seven-point night.
But there was the gritty Mitchell to save the Blue Devils, scoring 23 points and grabbing 14 rebounds as Duke beat the Irish, 67-59.
We don’t know what fate has in store for this Duke basketball team. But finding a way to win on its worst shooting night of the season (35.6%), when its best player was far from that, when it forgot its normally sure-handed ways to commit some downright ghastly turnovers, could be a harbinger of big things.
For Mitchell, it’s a sign of growth for a player who’s already been through ups and downs in the season’s first 14 games.
It was just five weeks ago Saturday when Mitchell, after an emphatic slam dunk late at Georgia Tech, received a technical foul for taunting. It proved to be a momentum-altering play as the Yellow Jackets upset Duke, 72-68, on Dec. 2 in Atlanta.
But Duke (11-3, 2-1 ACC) has not lost since, ripping off six consecutive wins. In the past two, Mitchell has scored 21 and 23 points, establishing new career-high point totals each time.
Where his overexuberance led to a problem at Georgia Tech, his steadiness and mental toughness are helping his team win of late.
“I think it’s just coming to me,” Mitchell said Saturday. “Obviously, my teammates have been helping me. I’ve been working on my game. Talking to God, truly. So I mean, when you do those things, good things can really happen. So the good comes with the bad and, tonight, a lot of good.”
That good included Mitchell going 2-for-2 from behind the 3-point line, too. He hit both shots in the second half when, after leading 29-27 at halftime, Duke never relinquished its lead over the Irish.
Seeing Mitchell, left open, confidently take — and make — those shots, one would never know he doubled his season output of 3-pointers Saturday night. He had been 1-for-22 this season.
Some may cringe when he launches those left-handed shots, but Duke coach Jon Scheyer isn’t one of them.
“The job that Mark Mitchell did, you know, let me just tell you how proud I am of him,” Scheyer said. “He’s been working his butt off consistently. He’s been really decisive and playing more confidently. And look, I love the two 3s. I love the shooting.”
While Filipowski scored seven points on 2-of-12 shooting, Mitchell more than made up the difference.
It’s a rare game when Filipowski doesn’t do major things to help Duke win. Even in his only other previous game this season when he scored fewer than 10 points, he grabbed 13 rebounds with four assists to go with five points when the Blue Devils blasted Charlotte, 80-56.
Notre Dame made life rough for him on Saturday night, with different players either bodying him up or meeting him at the rim to deny easy baskets.
That left Duke vulnerable to an upset. That’s life on the road in conference play.
Yet Mitchell refused to let it happen. Neither did senior guard Jeremy Roach, who scored 18 points and only turned the ball over once in 34 minutes.
Averaging nine turnovers per game this season, the Blue Devils had that many at halftime against Notre Dame. But they only committed two after halftime while not turning it over for the game’s final 11:46.With his team on the way to a 35.6% shooting night, Scheyer said players became hesitant to shoot, which led to indecisiveness and subsequent turnovers. Yet, the Blue Devils fixed that for the game’s most important minutes.
“Look, to our guys’ credit, to be able to turn it around the second half and take care of the ball,” Scheyer said, “that’s been such an incredible weapon for us all year. That was uncharacteristic in the first half but obviously great in the second half.”
It all added up to the kind of win that keeps a team’s season from going sideways. A loss to Notre Dame (6-9, 1-3 ACC), which is rebuilding under first-year coach Micah Shrewsberry, would have unraveled some of the good will the Blue Devils have built up over the last month.
By March, we’ll know how much this win, and Mitchell’s performance, actually means.
In the present, it has the potential to mean plenty.
