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Tuesday, December 6, 9:30pm ET, ESPN
Madison Square Garden
Duke completes its Big Ten trilogy. Iowa is good, but not a terribly scary matchup. Their center who can't make a shot outside the paint is on the court for almost 70% of the minutes. Their guards, including Tyler Ulis's younger brother, Ahron, aren't very good shooters. However, they have one great player who will be the best player on the court against just about any team they play against.
Kris Murray is the identical twin brother of Keegan Murray, who went #4 in the last NBA draft. Kris is looking like a 1st round pick himself, as a stretch 4 offensive machine. He's most of the reason Iowa has the #2 offense in the country, and he's also a big reason why Iowa isn't that great on defense. Advanced stats: 26% usage, 130 ORtg, 10.2 OBPM, 13% OReb, 24% DReb, sub-10% TORate. Basic stats: 21 and 11 per game, 41% 3pt, 85% ft, 59% 2pt. He should contend with Zach Edey and others for Big Ten POY.
Mitchell would probably guard Murray in a sensible rotation, but that will be difficult to pull off if two guys larger and slower than Mitchell continue to be on the court at all times. With Duke's usual twin towers rotation, it's likely that Filipowski will focus all his energy on guarding Murray. Many Duke fans are curious about what a non-twin towers lineup would look like, and this will be a good test of the coaches' stubbornness if Murray is lighting up Duke's bigs throughout the first half.
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