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Duke Rolls Past Texas In The 2nd Half, 75-60 In The Dick Vitale Invitational

November 5, 2025
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Jon Scheyer is starting his fourth season now and he’s been at it long enough so that we can discern some definite patterns, and here’s one: at the start of every season, Duke’s defense has been ahead of the offense. And that’s true so far this season as well.

Duke won 75-60, but started quite slowly against Texas. The Blue Devils started 1-9 from the floor and didn’t score until Dame Sarr hit a three 16:31 in.

Fortunately, Duke’s defense kept UT to just two points when Sarr hit that shot. With 13:20 gone, the score was still just 7-6. Then Isaiah Evans heated up, getting nine of Duke’s first 12 points.

Between the 13:11 and 10:00 marks, Evans hit four threes. Pat Ngongba scored two baskets in that stretch and after his fourth, Duke was up 19-14. Evans and Ngongba both hit two point baskets after that to push Duke up 23-14.

Texas pushed back and took a 33-32 lead into halftime.

It was a good thing that Evans had a great first half because Cameron Boozer certainly didn’t. He seemed like he was pressing throughout and didn’t get untracked at all before halftime. In fact, he shot just 0-7 and had just three rebounds before the break.

Things changed in the second half. Duke’s defense remained quite stout and while Boozer continued to struggle from the floor, the rest of his game sparkled. Boozer got to the line 12 times, hitting one. He also had three steals, two assists and a block and finished the game with 15 points and 13 rebounds.

We thought he had more assists than that, honestly.

Duke missed its last eight shots of the first half but started the second half with a 15-2 run. Boozer played much better after the break, but the thing that made the difference for Duke was, not surprisingly, defense.

At one point, Dick Vitale said that he didn’t think that Texas had had a single fast break point and he may be right. Duke held the Longhorns to 19-59 (32.2%) and 5-17 on threes (29.4%).

Dailyn Swain kept Texas in it, heating up in the second half and ultimately hitting seven of UT’s 19 shots. Take him out and Texas only hits 12 shots.

Matas Vokietaitis was effective. The Lithuanian big man hit 15 points and grabbed eight rebounds and was a massive physical presence throughout. He is still getting over a foot injury, but that guy is going to be trouble.

For the most part though, Duke’s defense ran the show. Caleb Foster really stepped up but everyone was pretty effective. We saw again that Evans is much more of a rounded player and, despite his lean build, much stronger.

Dame Sarr and Maliq Brown are both back – Sarr was back for the Tennessee exhibition – and both made a difference.

Sarr hit the first basket for Duke, as mentioned, but what really blew us away was the first fast break he ran. That guy just blew past defenders. We knew he was a good athlete but didn’t realize he was that fast. Later he had a steal and a breakaway dunk which he unfortunately missed. Even so, we got a much better idea of his overall athleticism. He’s going to be good. Sarr finished with eight points, five rebounds and two steals.

Brown fouled out, but he did his thing, disrupting passing and gumming up the works. It’s good to see him back.

Ngongba finished with 10 points and four rebounds.

Foster finished with even points and two assists. Nik Khamenia came off the bench for four points and three rebounds. Cayden Boozer had two points, three rebounds and two assists, while Darren Harris finished with three points. Like Evans, he’s clearly much stronger than he was as a freshman.

Duke finished with 22 baskets and 13 of them were assisted.

There were some rough spots in this game, at least on offense, but in general, the positives vastly outweighed the negatives. And here’s one of the best: after two superb exhibition performances, Boozer wasn’t nearly as good in this one, least of all in the first half.

And in the end, everyone else stepped up, notably Evans and Foster. Given how dominant he was against UCF and Tennessee, that Duke got past that with relative ease was a great sign.

Notes – Texas is probably underrated…with Swain, Vokietaitis and Nic Codie, the ‘Horns have a lot to build on…Jordan Pope played well too…it looks like Simeon Wilcher, who was a major recruit in high school, may have been overrated…we liked Khamenia coming off the bench…that might change but for now, it works really well…Cayden Boozer has some adjusting to do but we still like his game…Duke’s bench – Brown, Khamenia, Harris and Cayden Boozer – are all good enough to start…imagine how this game would have gone had Boozer played both halves the way he did the second…or if he had shot somewhat better…Evans finished with 23 points to lead Duke…

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