Balancing Acts
It’s not common for teams to have truly balanced scoring, but last year’s Duke team pulled it off.
So what do we mean when we say a team has balanced scoring? Well, if it means that it can produce substantial scoring from any position, and at a consistent rate, the ACC had just 9 squads that more or less fit that profile over the past decade. And three of them were Duke squads, including last year’s edition.
The ’24 Blue Devils were led in scoring by Kyle Filipowski at 16.42 points per outing, good for 11th place in the league. Guards Jared McCain chipped in 14.28, 17th in the ACC, and Jeremy Roach came in at 13.97. All are now gone – Filipowski and McCain to the NBA, Roach to Baylor. Mark Mitchell transferred to Missouri after chipping in 11.6 points a game.
Of Duke’s five double-figure scorers, the only returnee is guard Tyrese Proctor, a 10.5-point per game contributor who barely edged Roach in assists (118 v. 114).
Teams rotate players at various positions for reasons from varying skills to providing rest to changing their offensive or defensive look. This is where ever-popular ‘depth’ comes in, making it possible for a team to get double-figure scoring from a particular spot in the lineup by combining the achievements of several players without undue sacrifice. For instance, Mark Mitchell and Dariq Whitehead chipped in 17.4 points per game between them at small forward in 2023, with Mitchell at 9.1 and Whitehead at 8.3.
Certainly it’s notable that, of 150 teams competing in the ACC over the past decade, just nine managed a quintet of double-figure scorers and that Duke supplied three of them, two of those squads in the past three seasons, one under Mike Krzyzewski and the other under Jon Scheyer.
The other ACC club that recently managed multiple years of 5 double-figure scorers was Mike Brey’s Notre Dame in 2015, when it won the ACC Tournament, and 2016, when it reached the semis.
Duke in 2022 was the only one of the 9 teams in the past decade with five double-figure scorers to reach a Final Four.
| DOUBLE TROUBLE TIMES FIVE Team Double-Figure Scorers By Season Since 2015 (Minimum 300 Minutes Played) |
|||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| School | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | |
| BC | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
| C | 4 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | |
| D | 5 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | |
| FS | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | |
| GT | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 1 | |
| UL | 4 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | |
| UM | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | |
| NC | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | |
| NS | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | |
| ND | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | |
| UP | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | |
| SU | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | |
| V | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | |
| VT | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | |
| WF | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | |