The road away from Cameron Indoor Stadium has not been a welcoming place for Duke this season.
The Blue Devils will hope to snap out of their road funk Saturday when they visit Syracuse in an ACC clash.
Duke (18-8, 9-6 ACC) enters this matchup with a 2-6 road record, which includes a one-point win at Boston College. Only once in the first three months of the season have the Blue Devils posted an impressive road victory — and that came against a Georgia Tech team that is 3-13 in league play.
In its last two road outings, Duke has lost to ranked teams, as then-No. 19 Miami defeated the Blue Devils 81-59 and then-No. 7 Virginia took care of Duke 69-62 in overtime. Coach Jon Scheyer’s team returned home Tuesday and eked out a 68-64 win over Notre Dame as Kyle Filipowski scored 22 points.
“We’re getting towards the end of the season right now,” Filipowski said. “There’s really no more room to screw up or learn lessons from losses. You need to learn those lessons from wins. I think this game we won tonight is starting a really good streak for us for the rest of the season. We’re gonna use that to build off of it going down the road.”
Syracuse (16-10, 9-6) also has very little margin for error and needs to add some quality wins to its resume with the postseason right around the corner.
The Orange are coming off their best win of the season — a 75-72 triumph over No. 23 North Carolina State on Tuesday. Judah Mintz (20 points, nine assists) and Jesse Edwards (18 points, 16 rebounds) were among the standouts for Syracuse, which has won three games in a row.
“It’s been tough losing these (close) ones,” Edwards said. “To get one that’s that close against a good team — and also a top-25 team — is a next-level boost.”
Duke has won seven straight matchups against Syracuse, with all of those victories coming by at least nine points.
–Field Level Media
