Xs and Oats: To be the best, Alabama has to beat the best — Duke

The three-point shot has been called the great equalizer, and that has certainly proven to be the case in the NCAA tournament. As we enter the Elite 8, six of the teams still standing are elite from the perimeter, another is pretty good (Tennessee), and only one is downright rotten (Michigan State).

When you think “Duke,” most people instinctively default to the do-it-all generational talent, Cooper Flagg, or the Devils’ smothering, physical half-court defense. But you really should adjust your thinking, because what ought to scare you is Duke’s perimeter game, a three-point shot that keys the nation’s most efficient offense.

Let’s talk Crimson Tide-Blue Devils.

Tale of the Tape:
East No. 2 Alabama (28-8, SEC 3rd) v East No. 1 Duke (34-3, ACC 1st)

Spread: Duke -6.5

Opponent KenPom: 1 (1 offense, 5 defense, 266 tempo)
Opponent Evan Miya: 1 (1 offense, 5 defense, 251 tempo)
Opponent Bart Torvik: 2 (1 offense, 6 defense, 270 tempo)
Opponent NET: 1 (11-3 Q1, 18-3 Q1/Q2); Q1 opponent for the Tide
Opponent RPI: 5
Opponent Best Win: No. 3 Auburn (H)
Opponent Worst Loss: No. 24 Kansas (N)

UA Ken Pom: 6th (4 Off, 28 Defense, 1 Tempo)
UA Evan Miya: 5th (3 Off, 24 Defense, 1 Tempo)
UA Bart Torvik: 5th (3 Off, 26 Defense, 1 Tempo)
UA NET Ranking: 6 (14-8 Q1, 22-8 Q1/2)
UA RPI: 2
UA Best Win: No. 2 v Houston (N)
UA Worst Loss: No. 28 (N) Oregon

Cliff Notes on Duke: Imagine UConn with a lot more favorable whistles, a helluva lot better perimeter shooting, and a generational talent who is almost always going to be the single best player on the court every night — because he’s the best player in the game. They are patient in the half-court offense, and absolutely strangle teams inside the perimeter. If there is a weakness in this bunch, it’s that they don’t like to run, and they will surrender decent looks on the perimeter.

Hiring youth in Durham brought with Scheyer’s arrival a more modern offense. The Blue Devils run your bog-standard 5-out, ball-screen offense that we’ve seen many times before. However, when I say “ball screen” I mean that in the most promiscuous way imaginable. You will rarely see the Devils not setting a screen to flash a Horns look for a midrange jumper (they love the top of the key), or setting up drives by any of their four ferocious backcourt terrors. Unlike many 5-out teams, however, Duke will dribble at the top of the key and run a delay before Scheyer signals the play in — think of it like football, where the OC is calling the play in at the line of scrimmage. The Duke staff wants to get a look at what the defense is doing on each trip down the court before it decides what to do with the basketball.

In particular, the Devils run a lot of high screens for that Horns curl. The motion of the curls, frequently opens up the guards for easy 15-footers from the free throw line. Duke also loves the brush screens, where the 4 is playing the baseline or wing, and then screen-and-rolls to the inside — often penetrating to set up the kickout to one of the many shooters. Teams have been murdered trying to stop interior penetration all season long, because the Devils are simply too good at every spot on the floor to rotate over to help. If you leave a shooter open playing help defense, the Blue Devils will find them. And if you don’t help, then you’re setting up one-on-one against some of the most talented players in the country.

The double ball screens with big bodies opens up a variety of ways to do damage. It’s not schematically revolutionary, but with Duke’s talent, it doesn’t have to be:

And those shooters, man, we have to talk about those shooters too. The Blue Devils are an exceptional three-point shooting team. They have three starters who all shoot 40% from the perimeter (Knueppel, Proctor, Sion), a freshman volume sniper who comes off the bench and is the best of the bunch (42%), and it’s not like Cooper Flagg is trash, either (37%). Even if the Devils miss a shot, Duke has the best offensive rebounder in the sport, 7’2” freshman Kaman Maluach.

So, a team of excellent three-point shooters, who are patient as hell, have great size, and dominate the interior — did I mention they don’t turn the ball over? That’s a tall task for anyone. But, that three-point shot that the Devils live off of has killed them too. When it’s not falling, Duke has either struggled mightily or lost outright. Alabama actually brings the better perimeter defense into this game, and that is a definite bright spot for Tide fans.

Defensively, they swarm you inside the lane. The Blue Devils will give up perimeter looks to prevent penetration and make teams beat them with jump shot. The positive for ‘Bama here is that if any team can try to beat you with the jumper, it’s this group. Still, Duke’s hybrid man-zone scheme a la Ole Miss may force the Tide’s hand in the matter. Alabama isn’t good enough in the post to beat Duke consistently for 40 minutes in a very crowded lane; UA is going to have to hit some of those jumpers that the Devils concede, particularly catching them in defensive rotation.

Point Spread and Prediction

We have said of Auburn that you have to pick your poison. That will be true here as well. Do you concede the interior to a far better post team, and make them beat you from the outside? Teams get in trouble trying to play full-man defense against Duke; you simply can’t do it. They’re too good. You pick one area to stop and then you excel at it. That’s the only path forward to a victory. Let Flagg go off; let Knueppel drop 20 on you — but you must shut down scoring from Sion James and Tyrese Proctor (for example) or you let the shooters go nuts, provided you control the interior on both ends.

That is the bright spot, though. There is a path forward to an Alabama victory here, albeit a razor-thin one. This is nothing Alabama has not seen before; indeed, it’s nothing Alabama has not defeated before, in this very season. If the Blue Devils’ perimeter formula, patient half-court offense, and exceptional defense reminds you of anyone, it should. In almost every respect, outside of the post presence, Duke looks suspiciously like Houston. And, like the Cougars, it’s not a very deep bench either; the Devils have to dance with what brung ‘em.

Just as in that Houston clash, Alabama is going to have to play the defensive game of their life on the shooters, crash the glass with abandon, get Duke out of their comfort zone, make their own fortune with tempo and attacking the rim off the dribble to create offense: foul, kick, layup. This is not an invincible bunch. Kentucky beat them doing this very thing, as did Kansas and Clemson. The Devils have a hard time against athletic backcourts — UNC teed off on them in the ACC tournament, as did the Wildcats in the preseason. Alabama is the first elite backcourt with volume shooting Duke has faced since the nonconference schedule.

They’re not a very battle-tested bunch either, bringing in the softest remaining SOS of anyone in the tournament. How weak was it? In all of 2025, before the NCAA tourney began, the Devils faced six teams that made the NCAAs — three of those games were against play-in UNC. Contrast that to the Tide, where Alabama has played 18 games against tournament teams — with the NCAAs thrown in, the Tide has now on its 22nd just of the calendar year, and its 17th in a row against teams in the Big Dance.

The moment won’t be too big for the Crimson Tide but the talent advantage may be…unless Alabama can do each and everything above, hold their own on the glass, and hope their three-point shooting holds. It is, after all, the great equalizer.

Per FanDuel, Alabama is a +6.5 underdog.

It’s a very tall task, I’m not going to lie, but neither is it an inevitable loss. Still, Duke is really that good…probably a basket or two better than the Tide (-4.22). But if you want the more-offensive-minded modeling, there is the thinnest chance of a Tide win as well (UA -1.08). So pick whichever makes you feel better! I’m going to try to be objective here:

Alabama 84
Duke 88

Again, our thanks to FanDuel for sponsoring this site. We’ll see you over there.

How To Watch
7:49 Central, Saturday 29 March 25 (TBS)

Hope for the best,
Roll Tide

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