Duke tips again in less than 24 hours. With that in mind, a lighter dose of thoughts with more to come after there's, well, more to think about:
***That big black eye Marshall Plumlee was sporting Wednesday night? It was a result of an inadvertent poke by Ryan Kelly in practice.
***Mike Krzyzewski offered Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim congratulations on his 900th victory after Duke’s win. It was delivered with a heavy amount of sarcasm.
“How does a guy like that win so many games?” Krzyzewski said to a chorus of laughs. “He has no personality, he plays zone all the time, he golfs more than he watches tape. He must have a great staff and unbelievable players over the years.
“It is amazing that somebody can be at a school for 50 years,” said Krzyzewski, who has been at Duke 33 seasons. “He’s there for 50 years.”
***The back-to-back games against Cornell and Elon would have ideally been played over three days instead of two, Krzyzewski said, but scheduling around Duke’s academic needs can make December tough.
“You have to get games in,” he said. “December is really a difficult month for us because you have a two-week period of intense academics. That’s why we didn’t schedule that midweek game before Temple. So, when you take that game out, that game has to be fit in somewhere. It turned out this way. A lot depends, too, on when teams are available to play.”
***Seth Curry has scored 20 points in three straight games (remember that he didn't play against Delware with a left ankle injury). The senior is averaging 21 points in his last three games, wins over Cornell, Temple and Ohio State.
***I mentioned it in the game story, but it's worth repeating: Quinn Cook and Tyler Thornton combined for 17 assists and one turnover. Cook recorded a career-high 12 assists.
"It felt like he had more than that, the way he was setting people up," Mason Plumlee said of Cook. "He's so in control and is really fun to play with."
